By Luca Bertuzzi | EURACTIV.com

The United Nations International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is considering opening up a new office in Brussels amid calls from EU countries to represent better the bloc’s interest within the influential standardisation body.

ITU is the UN agency for telecommunication technologies, and since 1865, the body has shaped the international standards that define the functioning of global digital infrastructure.

Last September, ITU had to elect its leadership position, resulting in the Western-backed American candidate, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, defeating by a large majority the Russian contender for the Secretary-General post.

Europe obtained the second-highest post of deputy secretary-general with Tomas Lamanauskas, a Lithuanian national.

The idea of setting up shop in Brussels started circulating in December, when Lamanauskas, then yet to assume the position formally, came to town to meet with key EU officials. While the UN agency has more than one office on all other continents, in Europe, ITU only has its headquarters in Geneva.

“We have been discussing how to ramp up ITU and EU relations as part of a general discussion on how to better engage with participating countries at the regional level around the world,” Lamanauskas told EURACTIV, stressing that the Brussels office is one option among several on the table.

Currently, the European coordination on ITU work takes place at the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications (CEPT). However, CEPT’s activity is dominated mainly by the UK, which provides plenty of technical experts.

As a result, plenty of standardisation proposals discussed in CEPT come from London, and as such, they do not necessarily match EU interests.

A recent EU Council discussion showed there is an appetite among member states to set up a stronger coordination mechanism vis-à-vis ITU. Past examples show that, when speaking with a single voice, Europe effectively defended its interests in the international body.

Last year, China tried to include its vision for a more centralised internet, the so-called New IP, in the ITU’s mandate, a proposal that was pushed back thanks to a united Western front. However, this type of coordination remains ad hoc and unstructured.

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At this year’s inaugural meeting of the Telecom Working Party of the EU Council, where the Commission’s top digital policy bureaucrat Roberto Viola gave his annual programmatic speech, several countries raised the point of ensuring effective EU coordination within ITU.

The country representatives that spoke out were Bulgaria, Finland, Estonia, France, Spain, Lithuania, Portugal, Denmark, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece and Hungary. The discussion consequently moved on as other countries did not see the need to reiterate the point with the Commission.

The question of the ITU office in Brussels was not directly addressed, although rumours started spreading between the national representatives. Two of the four EU diplomats EURACTIV spoke to were already aware of the proposals, while the rest had not heard about it.

The Commission’s standardisation strategy strives to make the EU’s voice better heard in such international fora. However, according to one diplomat, the EU executive seems more concerned with ‘ticking the box’ and finalising its work programme before the mandate’s end in 2024.

The advantage of the Brussels office might be to create a permanent platform for EU countries to reach a single position and send back clear instructions to their national capitals. It might also help encourage the involvement of industry representatives, academics and other stakeholders.

However, a second diplomat warned the request might not necessarily be well received abroad. “What will be the opinion of other regions of the ITU if a specific office is set up in Brussels? ITU is much broader than Europe.”

Lamanauskas is quick to dismiss these concerns. “This effort to strengthen our engagement is not exclusive to the EU. For example, ITU is opening an innovation office in New Dehli.”

Another consideration concerns the fact that influence, most often than not, is a two-way street. International organisations that set up shop in Brussels are usually poised to influence EU decision-making rather than support it. The new office would also channel the information to the rest of ITU.

The UN agency is due to hold the first council meeting of this mandate in July, where the strategic and budgetary plans for the next four years will be set out. Therefore, the following weeks will be decisive if the EU wants to secure a more permanent foothold in the ITU – and the ITU in the EU.

The European Commission declined EURACTIV’s request for comment.

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• Editor’s Note: This article was updated with a correction on the role of the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications.