Diplo director Jovan Kurbalija was in Brussels on 21 June to attend the preparatory meeting on the Internet Governance Forum, organised by the European Internet Foundation. He also had a series of meetings with parliamentarians, officials of the European Commission and diplomats based in Brussels.
During the preparatory meeting, Dr Kurbalija talked about the narrow policy footprint of Internet governance, and how it is now on top of political agendas. He went through the history of the IGF since 2005, and described the developments influencing the evolution of the IGF: a big shift in global economic power, the return of the USA as a constructive player in multilateralism, crisis in global governance, and the ‘return’ of governments as active players. These developments changed the face of IG from a purely technical issue, to a topical, high strategy security one. Read the full speech here.
