Rome, June 27-28, 2024

Last week, the EuroISPA community travelled to Rome for the second General Meeting of the year, gathering Council and Forum members, Board Officers and Secretariat, kindly hosted by our Italian member AIIP.

This General Meeting came at a turning point in Europe’s political landscape, with the European elections results still fresh, the start of the Hungarian Presidency, and an entire EU agenda still to shape. This is precisely what our members discussed together in the two-day meeting in Rome. The agenda included:

📌 A nice welcome and overview of the work and priorities of AIIP, representing ISPs in Italy

📌 Analysis of the EU Elections results, what they mean for EuroISPA members, and our upcoming engagement efforts

📌 Approval of EuroISPA’s feedback to the European Commission’s White Paper on Digital Infrastructure. You can read our submission here.

📌 Exchange on several EuroISPA statements on topics such as sustainability, GDPR, AI, data retention, CSAM and payments.

Finally, we had the pleasure of welcoming several guest speakers:

• Vinicio Peluffo, Member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies for the Democratic Party, on how Italy is preparing for challenges stemming from AI
  
• Kristian Bartholin, Secretary to the Council of Europe’s Committee on AI, on the expectations on AI governance at a global level after the Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law
  
• Giuseppe Bianchi, Professor of Telecommunications at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, the role of infrastructure in enhancing the competitiveness of the EU and its Member States
  
• Andrea Margheri, Deputy Head of Division, Industrial, technological, research and training programs at the Italian Cybersecurity Agency, on the interplay between AI and cybersecurity and the opportunities and challenges

The next EuroISPA General Meeting will be held in Brussels in September – stay tuned!