ISupport Governing Body Meeting Minutes, January 20, 2022.pdf

Present were representatives from Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United States of America. The meeting was chaired by Paulo Gonçalves (Portugal). Present for the PB were Philippe Lortie (PL) and Jean-Marc Pellet (JMP).

I. Budgetary discussions (HCCH budget 2022-2023)
1. PL reported that discussions are underway for the HCCH budget for the next financial year (July 2022 to June 2023). The process started on 13 January with an informal meeting involving National Organs and / or representatives of the Standing Committee of the Council of Diplomatic Representatives.
2. PL recalled that several States had expressed a wish in the past for the position of iSupport Coordinator to be part of the “regular budget” of the organisation (now “the budget”), as opposed to a specific iSupport budget.
3. The informal budget presented by the Secretary General (SG) at the 13 January meeting includes the position of iSupport coordinator as part of the budget, as well as a new human resources position. Along with other developments, this has an impact on the budget, with about a 6% increase.
4. PL explained that this move will further help consolidating iSupport, which is now used by two Central Authorities, with 14 States working towards implementation and 10 additional States or territories which have shown an interest.
5. Moving the position to the budget would mean that the coordinator could also work on other 2007 Convention topics, especially as 2022 has brought new responsibilities for PL (jointly with his colleague Secretary, Laura Martinez-Mora): the 1980 Child Abduction Convention and the 1996 Child Protection Convention.
6. PL concluded that it would send a strong signal, after the European Union has taken steps towards the sustainability of e-CODEX. He invited participants to contact their National Organ if they supported this initiative.
7. One representative asked if the Permanent Bureau could provide some language to facilitate their contact with their National Organ. PL replied positively.
8. One representative remarked that making voluntary contributions (as opposed to their contribution to the budget) is difficult for their State and enquired about the current cost of the coordinator.
9. One representative enquired about the relation to other budgets such as the EU Action Grants. PL clarified that payments for EU Action Grants can be received at any time before the end of the Grant.
10. One representative enquired about the impact for iSupport if the position could not be transferred to the budget. PL explained that staff rules do not permit to employ staff paid outside of the budget for a period longer than four years.

II. State of play technical work in iSupport
11. JMP provided a brief update. Following vulnerabilities in the Apache log4j software that were identified last year, e-CODEX released new versions of the connector (4.4.x).
12. JMP also invited participants to test the 2021 version that is currently available on the sandbox as much as possible.
13. PL added that Austria is installing iSupport in a testing capacity, with a view to demonstrating how e-CODEX components can work in conjunction with iSupport.