Opening remarks by Christina Meinecke, Representative to the European Union.14 April 2026, Brussels.

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I would like to thank the co-organizers of this event, the European Commission and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for bringing us together today, - so many stakeholders interested in the relationship between human rights and technical standards.

This is not the first event our institutions are organizing together. During the last ITU-T’s World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-24) in New Delhi, the European Commission, together with the Czech Republic, France, OHCHR and ITU organized an event that reinforced “the critical link between technical standards and human rights in the digital age”, recognizing that “technical standards can either promote or hinder human rights, depending on their design and implementation”.