05 October, 2023

ETNO holds General Assembly, approves strategic orientation and governance for 2024

Vienna (Austria), 5 October 2023 – ETNO, the Association representing Europe’s leading providers of digital networks and services, met today in Vienna for its annual General Assembly. Members and observers approved ETNO’s annual strategy for 2024 as well as a series of governance decisions. As per ETNO statutes, the event was hosted on a rotating basis by leading Austrian telecom operator A1 Telekom Austria. The meeting was opened by Florian Tursky, Austria’s State Secretary in charge of digitalization.

ETNO Strategy for 2024

By taking stock of the challenging geopolitical and economic situation, ETNO confirms that its main direction for 2024 will be to support the core purpose of the European telecom sector: empowering communities through access to inclusive and secure digital infrastructure and services, while enabling sustainable business models across sectors of the economy and society.

In this context, ETNO’s priorities for 2024 will be clustered around 3 main areas:

• Develop, advance and support a policy positioning fit for the age of network virtualization and of evolving telecom markets, with consumers and businesses at the centre;
• Shape and advocate for a new political and policy agenda for 2024 – the year of change. The focus is on the European Continent, intended as the EU as well as the other European countries.
• Ensure continued global presence with specific regard to contributing to the Transatlantic tech agenda as well as relevant global fora.

Governance Decisions

The General Assembly reconfirmed Steven Tas (Proximus) as ETNO Executive Board Chairman 2024 for an additional one-year mandate. In terms of Executive Board composition, Deutsche Telekom (Jakob Greiner), Proximus (Steven Tas), TIM (Giacomo Robustelli) and Swisscom (Karin Stöckli) were reconfirmed for an additional 3-years mandate. They will therefore continue working along with the current Board members.

The General Assembly also approved the 2024 budget, providing for a stable financial situation, while taking into account continued inflationary pressure. In addition, in compliance with the recent changes in Belgian rules for national and international associations, the General Assembly approved an update of the Statutes.

Lise Fuhr, ETNO Director General, said: “In 2024, ETNO will continue being a trusted partner for dialogue with stakeholders on all tech and telecom policy matters, especially looking at network innovation”.