European Union Statement 

Meeting of the ITU Council 

Geneva, 10 June 2024

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union and its Member states.

Every discussion on the war in Ukraine must start by restating, unequivocally, an overriding fact: Russia’s illegal, unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression constitutes a manifest violation of international law, including the UN Charter and the resolutions of the General Assembly.

We recall that this organization has approved resolution 1408, which is unequivocal on the ITU’s commitment to support Ukraine’s telecommunication sector at the time of war. We welcome the ITU report on its activities in this domain.

We reiterate our support for a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in Ukraine. To this end, the aggressor must immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all its troops and military equipment from the entire territory of Ukraine and respect its sovereignty and territorial integrity, in line with the resolutions of the General Assembly.

We welcome Switzerland’s initiative to host a Summit on Peace in Ukraine in the coming days and call on all states to participate. The international community must reaffirm the centrality of international law, including the UN Charter and its principles.

Furthermore, we express our concern, as several ITU member states have recently suffered harmful interferences affecting satellite signals, including GPS. These interferences have notably endangered air traffic control, and have affected children’s TV channels by broadcasting violent images of the war in Ukraine.

These actions constitute a violation of several Articles of the ITU Constitution and of the Radio Regulations.

We reiterate the sovereign right of each ITU member to regulate its telecommunications within its internationally recognized borders and therefore call for an immediate end of these harmful interferences. These incidents have been reported to ITU and several countries have filled requests within the Radio Regulations Board, in order to coordinate efforts to eliminate any form of interferences and improve the use made of the radio-frequency spectrum for radiocommunication services and of the geostationary-satellite and other satellite orbits.

We call upon the RRB to consider these harmful interference cases affecting satellite signals in the affected ITU Member States with utmost care and in due time and to prepare a comprehensive report detailing findings and recommendations.

The European Union continues to stand with the Ukrainian people.