As delivered

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a pleasure to be with you this afternoon, marking a further step in the co-operation between the Council of Europe and internet companies and their representatives’ associations.

Two years after beginning our joint work, we are happy to welcome five new partners that also want to play a proactive role in ensuring the implementation of human rights, democracy and the Rule of Law online:

• Element AI, which is producing and selling technological solutions based on deep learning and is one of the masterminds of the Montreal Declaration for the Responsible Development of Artificial Intelligence;

ICCO, an organisation which gathers 3000 public relations consulting firms and associations around the world, which harmonises professional practices in this field and which developed instruments such as the Guidelines on ethics in digital communication;

• IEEE, the professional association for electronic and electrical engineering;

• INTEL, the world's second largest semiconductor chip manufacturer;

• And RIPE NCC, a nonprofit organisation covering 76 countries, overseeing the allocation and registration of internet number resources and supporting the technical and administrative coordination of internet infrastructure;

I welcome each and every one of you.

As of today, we have a total of twenty-one companies and associations participating on our platform for constructive dialogue, regular consultation and concrete co-operation.

And I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge not just our new partners but also to thank our existing partners too.

As you know from the working session this morning, we have a full agenda of activities on which to work together during the coming months: artificial intelligence; children’s rights; hate speech on the internet, and the criminal law implications of technical developments, to name but a few.

So, I look forward to our joint efforts and to what we can go on to achieve together, in the interests and safety of Europeans online.

Thank you very much.