 Welcome to the ITU studio here at the Radio Communication Assembly, which is going to be leading into the World Radio Communication Conference 2023 here in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. I'm very pleased to be joined in the studio today by Walid Sami, who is from the European Broadcasting Union, and we have spoken a number of times before. In fact, at the last World Radio Communication Conference as well. Walid, welcome to the studio. Thank you very much, Max. I'm happy to be here. Now, I would like to start off by asking you a little bit about this conference. Perhaps you can explain it, the conference to people who are uninitiated. And the fact that it's a very long conference, but it has a great deal of importance, particularly for Spectrum, particularly for Radio Communication, and obviously you're taking the time to be here and you're going to be here for the next five, six weeks. So perhaps you could give us a little bit of an insight of why the European Broadcasting Union is here. With pleasure. The event has two parts, mainly the Radio Communication Assembly and the World Radio Communication Conference. The Radio Communication Assembly deals with the structure and the working methods of the study groups of the ITU, the permanent study groups, and the World Radio Communication Conference revises the radio regulations, which is the allocation of the frequencies to the different radio communication services. For the Radio Communication Assembly, the EBU is committed to work with the ITU, and we provide experts and also chairs, chairpersons to several of the groups. Mainly in the broadcasting area of course, so study group six for example. I was vice chair until now, but in a few days I will be replaced by other vice chairs because I made two mandates. And the EBU continues to be engaged because we have another candidate from the EBU for the vice chair of the study group six. So the Radio Communication Assembly has many subjects to deal with this week. There is no big controversial subjects fortunately, but there are lots of points to deal with. This is why for five days only meeting, the groups will be meeting until nine o'clock several days and exceptionally possibly until eleven, eleven p.m. to deal with all the work. And the broadcasting group in the Radio Communication Assembly is quite a solid group. Recently, in the beginning of 2023, the ITU study group six received the Emmy awards for the work on the higher dynamic range, which is quite reason to be proud in fact. The World Radio Communication Conference that will follow is a different thing. This time it is quite important for the broadcasting because we have one agenda item, which is quite crucial for the future of the terrestrial broadcasting platform that the public service really relies on in the different, in many countries in the world. This time the remaining spectrum for terrestrial broadcasting is at stake and is also contemplated by other services. And we have been preparing since Sharma Sheikh when we met the last time, we have been preparing really, really intensively in order to show the need of the broadcasting for this spectrum. And the situation is never sure because the positions of the administration is quite different, but we are confident that we will succeed to protect this spectrum for the public good. Let's say this is the only remaining spectrum for broadcasting and for the cultural industry like the radio microphones that you certainly are using now. They use the same spectrum in sharing conditions with broadcasting and we think that this needs to be preserved for this usage. And how hard is it? I mean, there are going to be 4,000 delegates probably here in the course of the next few weeks. How hard is it for agreements to be reached and for spectrum to be protected, et cetera, for the results to be achieved that you think would be beneficial to the globe? It is very hard because the decisions should be taken by consensus. There is no counting of votes and this makes it very, very difficult, especially when a subject has different positions, opposite positions between the administrations. So, there will be lots of discussions, negotiations in order to find ways and solutions for this. And fortunately, the radio regulations provide a large number of solutions, of possible solutions to satisfy, let's say, partly, partially everyone. But as in many places, the solution that will be agreed will be agreed because everyone will be unsatisfied, not because one is satisfied and another one is unsatisfied. This is how I see the things. Let's talk about the study groups because I know that obviously you've been very involved with those, particularly with study group 6. The Emmy Award, obviously, is a very satisfactory result there. How does the work of the study groups contribute to innovations such as the one that was premiered? Well, as I said, this is a very, very good example. The study groups, they gather experts from the member states and the sector members. And they come with the innovation that they are developing in their organizations. But the value of doing this in ITU is that it becomes accessible to the wider community. The developing countries do not have the same resources as the developed countries. And the ITU is connecting all these experts together in order to share this knowledge and for the benefit of everyone. And you're here, obviously, representing the interests of your members, members of the EU. Are there any particular challenges in doing that? Because, of course, they can't all agree or they can't all be in 100% consensus to what their aims and wishes are? Of course, like any organization, we have 115 member organizations. But we manage, we have our methods of work in order to approve our positions. And of course there are differences, but we always manage to have a position which is agreed by the organization. And are you confident that this WRC will be successful? I mean, you say to say that it's a consensus and that not everybody will be satisfied at the end, but it'll be the best possible result? Look, the experience in the past, the history proves that always the WRC has been a success. Because there is a large number of results obtained and they are all useful. There might be a few points that are not necessarily, but not satisfactory. But they come back in future WRCs because maybe the circumstances are not met yet for them to succeed. But globally the WRC always succeeds. Welly, thank you very much for joining us in the studio today. It's great to see you. And I'm sure we'll be seeing each other a lot over the next few weeks. And thank you very much indeed and good luck. Thank you very much. Thank you. And do join us for more interviews on the ITU YouTube channel and SoundCloud as well. And we will be doing a number of these interviews here in the ITU studio here in Dubai at the World Radio Communication Conference. So do tune in and thank you very much indeed for being with us.