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Re: Latest voting
by Fergal Cunningham 02 Nov '26

02 Nov '26

Dear Hank, The draft agenda containing the resolution was published and announced to members on 17 September, six weeks before the GM. This provides four weeks for members to review and comment on the resolutions before the agenda is final. The draft agenda was also highlighted in subsequent mails to the members. The resolution change was highlighted in the mail that the Executive Board Chair sent to members two weeks ahead of the GM with the Board’s recommendations on voting on the resolutions: https://mailman.ripe.net/archives/list/ncc-announce@ripe.net/thread/C3YEARA… And the change was also explained in two of the presentations delivered at the GM - the Report from the Executive Board and the Financial Update and RIPE NCC Surplus presentations: https://www.ripe.net/membership/gm/meetings/october-2026/documents-and-arch… We were conscious that this was a change that needed to be clearly communicated to members, and we made these efforts to do just that. If you or other members have thoughts on how we can better make sure that changes like this are well communicated, then please do let us know. Best regards, Fergal Cunningham Head of Membership Engagement RIPE NCC In the latest voting that took place at the GM, there was the following summary: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The General Meeting approves to add/subtract the excess contribution/deficit paid in the financial year 2026 in the following way: - In case there is an excess contribution, this will be added to the RIPE NCC reserves. - In case of a deficit, this will be covered by the RIPE NCC membership in 2027.” NOTE: If the membership does not approve the resolution, the excess contribution paid will be redistributed to the membership in 2027 according to the RIPE NCC Clearing House procedure and the deficit will be paid by RIPE NCC reserves. Yes - 57% No - 42% ------------------------------------------------------------- I think that the wording on this resolution determined the results. Everyone on this list has complained over the increase of budgets and the need for a smaller budget. In the past, excess budget has been redistributed to the members. If the resolution had been worded as: The General Meeting approves to redistribute the excess contribution to the membership in 2027 according to the RIPE NCC Clearing House procedure and if there is a deficit it will be paid by RIPE NCC reserves. Then it would have easily passed. Perhaps, in the future, wording of resolutions can be vetted by the membership so as to eliminate these kinds of issues? Thanks, Hank

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Latest voting
by hank＠interall.co.il 31 Oct '26

31 Oct '26

In the latest voting that took place at the GM, there was the following summary: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The General Meeting approves to add/subtract the excess contribution/deficit paid in the financial year 2026 in the following way: - In case there is an excess contribution, this will be added to the RIPE NCC reserves. - In case of a deficit, this will be covered by the RIPE NCC membership in 2027.” NOTE: If the membership does not approve the resolution, the excess contribution paid will be redistributed to the membership in 2027 according to the RIPE NCC Clearing House procedure and the deficit will be paid by RIPE NCC reserves. Yes - 57% No - 42% ------------------------------------------------------------- I think that the wording on this resolution determined the results. Everyone on this list has complained over the increase of budgets and the need for a smaller budget. In the past, excess budget has been redistributed to the members. If the resolution had been worded as: The General Meeting approves to redistribute the excess contribution to the membership in 2027 according to the RIPE NCC Clearing House procedure and if there is a deficit it will be paid by RIPE NCC reserves. Then it would have easily passed. Perhaps, in the future, wording of resolutions can be vetted by the membership so as to eliminate these kinds of issues? Thanks, Hank

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Re: [ncc-announce] [News] Draft Activity Plan and Budget 2027 Published
by Kaj Niemi 27 Oct '26

27 Oct '26

Hi, Okay, I’ll bite. The plan shows a 1.7M EUR operating deficit, partly offset by 0.6M EUR in budgeted financial income, leaving a net deficit of 1.1M EUR. When does RIPE NCC expect operations to return to balance, and what changes will get them there? If I have the figures right, RIPE NCC had 182 FTEs and four EoR staff in 2024. The 2027 budget puts the combined figure at around 208. What accounts for that increase, and how much of it is temporary staffing for the infrastructure project? The infrastructure renewal may be justified, but I have more questions about its cost after reading the draft than I did before: * Page 17 mentions expected savings of 27K EUR. Surely it can't be all. Is that per month or per year? * The plan includes 7.7M EUR in capital expenditure for infrastructure renewal. What additional data center and IT capital expenditure is expected in each year from 2028 to 2031? * The associated operating expenditure appears to be 1.2M EUR in 2027 and at least 1.4M EUR in 2028. What is projected for each year through 2031? Which existing costs will this spending replace? * What resilience does the proposed design provide beyond the lower-cost 5M EUR option? If the proposed approach proves unworkable, what is the fallback? * Page 18 discusses using Clearing House reserves. As I understand it, these reserves were built largely from past membership fees (while the same paragraph implies there are plenty of alternatives to raising it via membership fees.......) Is that correct, and what would using them leave as a reserve buffer? * What is the opportunity cost for this proposed project? I would also like a bit more color on the 2.2M EUR office renovation. * What kind of work does it cover? * Will the landlord contribute, or will RIPE NCC pay the full amount? * What would be the cost per sqm? Spreading the cost over nine years for accounting purposes does not change the upfront cash requirement. The quoted 12 EUR per LIR per year describes the annual depreciation, not what RIPE NCC must spend on the renovation. The same distinction applies to the infrastructure project: allocating its cost across LIRs over five years does not show how it will be funded or what it will cost to operate. Depreciation is relevant to the income statement and the asset's carrying value on the balance sheet, but it does not show when the cash is spent, which is much more interesting in my opinion. Finally, I am concerned about the prospect of another membership fee increase. If members are asked to vote on higher fees again next spring, how does RIPE NCC expect to fund these plans without raising fees year after year? What tangible benefit will members receive in return for the additional cost? Please don't take it the wrong way, but I'm very concerned that the membership exists for RIPE NCC and not NCC existing for us. Kaj ________________________________ From: Hans Petter Holen <hph+announce(a)ripe.net> Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2026 22:08 To: ncc-announce(a)ripe.net <ncc-announce(a)ripe.net> Subject: [ncc-announce] [News] Draft Activity Plan and Budget 2027 Published Dear members, The Draft RIPE NCC Activity Plan and Budget 2027 is now available for your review at: https://www.ripe.net/s/gm/oct-2026-supporting-docs/ This document begins our 2027-2031 strategic cycle and introduces a more streamlined approach to the Activity Plan. Key budget points for 2027 include: - Income of EUR 42.5 M - Operational costs of EUR 44.2 M - Deficit from operations at EUR 1.7M EUR - Financial Income and Expenditures at EUR 0.6 M - Deficit at EUR 1.1 M - Combined FTE and Employer of Record (EoR) count increasing by 2.5% The overall budgets for Registry, External Engagement & Community, and Organisational Sustainability remain at the same level as 2026. General personnel increases and inflation have been incorporated, with savings made within these divisions through continuous cost optimisation and control. The main change is the investment required to renew our technical infrastructure. This project has already started in 2026 and will run until 2028. As a result, capital expenditure will increase from 930 kEUR in the 2026 Budget to EUR 10.5 M in 2027. Included in this total is EUR 2.2 M for repairs and renovations to our offices. Our budgeted income also reflects the Charging Scheme approved by the membership at the General Meeting in May 2026, including the EUR 1,894 membership fee, the introduction of fees for legacy IPv4 resources and changes to ASN fees. We have budgeted to start 2027 with 20,000 LIR accounts, the same as in 2026. RIPE NCC expense per LIR is expected to be EUR 2,056, a 7% increase compared to the 2026 Budget. Please read the document and share any feedback on members-discuss(a)ripe.net<mailto:members-discuss@ripe.net>. The document was approved for publication by the Executive Board at its 196th meeting: https://www.ripe.net/about-us/executive-board/minutes/executive-board-minut… The Draft Activity Plan and Budget 2027 will be discussed at the General Meeting (GM) alongside RIPE 93 and in the RIPE NCC Services Working Group on Wednesday, 28 October 2026. The Executive Board will consider all feedback on our activities before approving the final version that will be published in December 2026. If you would like to participate or vote in the GM, you will need to register. You can find all information about the GM, including the draft agenda and how to register, at: https://www.ripe.net/s/gm/oct-2026/ Kind regards, Hans Petter Holen, Managing Director and CEO RIPE NCC

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Board Resolution to Suspend the Acquisition of Multiple LIR Accounts
by Lucas Rolff 07 Oct '26

07 Oct '26

Hello, How is this going to work in reality? People who are merging companies or converting companies (for example I'm moving from sole trader to BV), I can no longer make this move happen in RIPE I'm now forced to keep my resources under me as a natural person instead of moving my resources where it belongs: to the BV Billing wise I'm no longer able to use the VAT on my invoice for input VAT (voorbelasting), and the LIR membership belongs to me as a natural person so moving the expense into the BV becomes rather hard to justify. Effectively increasing the cost of being LIR quite a bit. I can understand that there's certain restrictions, but preventing things like company mergers, when you don't allow updating LIR accounts to a new entity seems like an odd thing to do, especially considering that the manual work largely is caused by your own policy. Sent from my iPhone

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Re: Board Resolution to Suspend the Acquisition of Multiple LIR Accounts
by Akayo 05 Oct '26

05 Oct '26

Hi! There is one thing I don't understand: What's the plan of RIPE NCC to actually prevent it? People would simply start to create new entities to bypass the prohibition. This is an additional burden and we've seen this 10 years ago when the last allocations were handed out. This lead to the decision to allow multiple LIR accounts. Also a second or third LIR account comes with additional membership fees. These are already kind of compensation for the effort. I don't understand why this is not enough. --Kayo

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Re: [ncc-announce] [GM] Proposed Change to RIPE NCC Articles of Association - Board Structure
by Kaj Niemi 25 Sep '26

25 Sep '26

Hi, Interesting post. Calling this a technical clarification understates slightly the governance change. Making the Managing Director an executive director places the person being supervised within the legal board responsible for that supervision. This is really not a good thing even if the spin is that it's a nothingburger and business as usual. RIPE NCC is not a conventional company seeking faster commercial decision-making.... I think. It is a member-funded, community-accountable organization entrusted with critical Internet-number-resource services. Its governance should therefore prioritize independence, transparency, and clear lines of accountability over administrative convenience. I don't think the issue is whether the MD has the authority to run daily operations. The person already does. The issue is whether the member-elected board can independently challenge management, assess performance, set remuneration, plan succession, investigate failures and, if necessary, dismiss the MD. Those functions are inherently more difficult when the MD is a fellow board member rather than clearly accountable to a separate supervisory body. Recusal rules can help with formal votes, but they do not remove the wider problem. A MD who is a board member still participates in board dynamics, receives the same information, influences discussion and may affect what is brought to the board and how it is framed. Other directors may be less willing to raise concerns openly, especially in a relatively small board. If the aim is to align legal responsibility with operational control, the cleaner solution is a genuine separation: management is responsible for execution, while a separately elected supervisory board oversees it. That preserves accountability without mixing the executive and supervisory roles. In a member-funded organization, the board must be able to hold the Managing Director to account independently and without avoidable conflicts. Neither does there seem to be safeties in place, in the AoA, for the MD to not be designated/chosen as (at least) COB. There must be. Combining the executive and chair roles ("CEO Duality") would be a much more serious governance problem than merely making the MD an executive director. The executive runs RIPE NCC; the COB leads the board that must supervise that executive. Giving both roles to one person means that the person being held accountable can also shape the agenda, information flow, and discussion through which accountability is exercised. Again, formal recusals on individual votes do not prevent that structural conflict. In a member-funded organization, the COB should be an independent, member-elected non-executive director, able to organize genuine scrutiny of management and to lead discussions on performance, pay, succession and, where necessary, removal. Given that legal and governance experts were consulted, I would have expected the implications of combining executive and supervisory roles to have been addressed more explicitly. Kaj ________________________________ From: Fergal Cunningham <fergalc(a)ripe.net> Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2026 16:03 To: ncc-announce(a)ripe.net <ncc-announce(a)ripe.net> Subject: [ncc-announce] [GM] Proposed Change to RIPE NCC Articles of Association - Board Structure Dear RIPE NCC members, At the upcoming General Meeting, we are proposing a change to the RIPE NCC Articles of Association (AoA) to bring our formal governance structure in line with the way the organisation already works in practice. Under the proposal, the current RIPE NCC Executive Board will become the RIPE NCC Board. The seven Board members elected by the membership will continue to serve as non-executive Board members, while the RIPE NCC CEO will become an executive member of the same Board. This is primarily a matter of making our legal structure accurately reflect the roles that the Board and the CEO already perform, without changing the fundamental balance of governance at the RIPE NCC. Our Chief Legal Officer, Athina Fragkouli, has published a RIPE Labs article that explains what these changes are and why we are proposing them. https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flabs.ripe…<https://labs.ripe.net/author/athina/moving-to-a-new-board-structure/> Supporting documentation will be published on 30 September. Members will vote on the proposed changes to the AoA at the upcoming RIPE NCC General Meeting on 28-30 October. Details on how to participate in the GM and register your vote are available at: https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ripe.…<https://www.ripe.net/s/gm/oct-2026/> If you have questions or comments on the proposed changes, please comment on the article or discuss with fellow members on the Members Discuss mailing list: <members-discuss(a)ripe.net>. Kind regards, Fergal Cunningham Head of Membership Engagement RIPE NCC ----- To unsubscribe from this mailing list or change your subscription options, please visit: https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmailman.r…<https://mailman.ripe.net/mailman3/lists/ncc-announce.ripe.net/> As we have migrated to Mailman 3, you will need to create an account with the email matching your subscription before you can change your settings. More details at: https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ripe.…<https://www.ripe.net/membership/mail/mailman-3-migration/>

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RIPE NCC Quarterly Planning Q4 2026
by Boris Duval 17 Sep '26

17 Sep '26

Dear colleagues, We have now published the upcoming quarterly plans for our development teams: https://www.ripe.net/quarterly-planning We publish these plans each quarter to showcase the work items we will be carrying out over the next months. We welcome your feedback and encourage you to suggest items that the RIPE NCC should be working on going forward. The plans cover the following areas: - RIPE Database - Business Applications, including the LIR Portal, Registry Services and other applications. - DNS and K-root - RIPE Atlas - RIPEstat - Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) - Routing Information Service (RIS) - Information Security, Risk, and Compliance - Training and Certification If you have any questions or input on these plans, please share your suggestions on this list or the RIPE NCC Forum: https://forum.ripe.net/ Kind regards, Boris Duval Communications Officer RIPE NCC

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Analysis on May 2026 GM
by Ilke Ilhan 22 Jun '26

22 Jun '26

Hi all, We just published a new article on the May 2026 GM. As well as analysing participation, we also reflect on the outcome of the RIPE NCC Charging Scheme vote. You can find it on RIPE Labs: https://labs.ripe.net/author/ilke-ilhan/gm-may-2026-why-did-people-vote-the… Cheers, Ilke

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RIPE NCC Quarterly Planning Q3 2026
by Boris Duval 11 Jun '26

11 Jun '26

Dear colleagues, We have now published the upcoming quarterly plans for our development teams: https://www.ripe.net/quarterly-planning We publish these plans each quarter to showcase the work items we will be carrying out over the next months. We welcome your feedback and encourage you to suggest items that the RIPE NCC should be working on going forward. The plans cover the following areas: - RIPE Database - Business Applications, including the LIR Portal, Registry Services and other applications. - DNS and K-root - RIPE Atlas - RIPEstat - Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) - Routing Information Service (RIS) - Information Security, Risk, and Compliance - Training and Certification If you have any questions or input on these plans, please share your suggestions on this list or the RIPE NCC Forum: https://forum.ripe.net/ Kind regards, Boris Duval Communications Officer RIPE NCC

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Re: RIPE NCC Charging Scheme Proposals - result announced.
by Joachim Tingvold 08 Jun '26

08 Jun '26

On 2 Jun 2026, at 10:20, Chano Klinck Andersen wrote: > It’s interesting how often the assumption is made that IPv4 > addresses will be returned if they cost more to hold on to. Well, I don’t see how such a change would make it worse than what we see today? For a lot of organizations, the ~€2-3k they have to pay for their multiple /16’s or whatever that they don’t really need, is a rounding error in a lot of budgets (and “a couple of /16’s is being generous — some have WAY more that they barely use). But for a small ISP with a /24 or whatever, the ~€2-3k+++ is starting to actually matter in their total budget (I know because I’m one of them). > The way I see it, they will not be returned. Instead, they will be > sold/leased to the highest bidder. Higher fees to RIPE NCC will make > IPv4 addresses more valuable as an asset, which in turn would raise > the market price. That assumption only applies to those who are already leasing out excess address space they own… and they might also re-consider if their fee to RIPE would increase significantly. That would be the same logic as landlords in some countries that are selling their rental properties due to increased loan interest (aka its not profitable anymore). I don’t know if you still don’t have to pay for legacy address space, but that used to be the case. That’s literally zero incentive to do anything but “sit on it” (unless you speculate to sell it off, as many also have done). And those organizations that do register, can get away with the equivalent of PA-as-PI address space via sponsoring LIR (AFAIK) with essentially zero cost as well (compared to the current price of being a LIR). Ironically, for those ISPs that have “a lot of resources”, the “per resource”-model for sponsoring LIR would be more fair than the current flat-fee (i.e. they would have to pay more than they currently do via the flat-fee). I also know of individuals with /16 as PI via sponsored LIR. They pay like €150 or whatever, and use it for “shits & giggles” (sure they use *some* part of it for labbing or whatever, but still). Individuals/organizations that have these amounts of resources that are not strictly needed would for sure either a) sell, or b) return to the pool, if they had to pay “accordingly” based on their resource size. > Instead of trying to reclaim IPv4 addresses (which I don’t believe > is going to happen in any meaningful capacity), what about trying to > figure out how we can complete the transition to IPv6, making IPv4 > addresses irrelevant and ending this yearly recurring discussion once > and for all? Even if we do at some point, the dual-stack scenario is still going to be there for many decades still. Sure, we’re at a better place than just a few years back, but it’s going to take time. A long time. > The only reason, as I see it, why some members want the tiered or fee > per IPv4 address model is because they can’t get the IPv4 addresses > they need. If we had all just transitioned to IPv6 a long time ago, > when the problem became apparent and before the last /8 was used up, > no one would be complaining about the charging scheme the way they are > today. I simply want it because it’s fair to pay more for more things. If you want 100 cars, you have to pay for 100 cars. As a consultant I have worked for more organizations than I can count that has way more IPv4-resources than they would ever need. And they just sit on it because it doesn’t cost them anything. Some of them are universities that historically had a flat, one-VRF network, zero firewall, and “fully open for everyone due to being research oriented” with public IPs on every device. That was fine historically, and I don’t blame them. However, most of these have now transitioned to fully segregated networks with firewall and NAT-boxes due to the increased need for cyber security. As part of that change, many of them started to use RFC1918 address space. The old argument that “we use our public addresses because then we don’t need to have expensive NAT boxes” are no longer valid. But do they do anything about the excess IPv4 address space they have? No, they just keep it because it’s essentially zero-cost for them, even if they literally don’t use it anymore (or maybe they use a couple of /24’s of their multiple /16’s as NAT pool). Should they return it to adhere to RIPE policies? Of course. But there’s no way to reliably check if they actually use it or not. Which is part of the problem. > Prior to IPv4 run-out, we rarely ever discussed the fees, but since > running out, we have the same discussion, with the same arguments, and > the same result (no change at all) every year. I don’t technically care about the lack of IPv4 address space, and the need to return it. Its just a nice way to solve several problems; * Make sure that you pay for the service you get according to the size/value (ASN/IPv4/IPv6-resources) * Give good monetary incentive to return unneeded resources to RIPE (or sell it, both solves the problem that they don’t have to pay for it anymore) * Reduce the cost for smaller LIRs and increase it for the bigger LIRs (pay more for more things) > Furthermore, RIPE NCC is a membership association. In many > associations, members pay the same fee even if they make different > levels of use of the shared facilities or services. I have rarely seen > associations require members to pay based on their wealth or exact > usage of shared resources. I’ve seen differentiated prices for kids > vs. adults, but that’s about it. If we only received equal service (whois, etc), then I would agree with your argument. But that membership also gives you access to a resource that has a real-life monetary value, and the more you have of it, the more valuable is it. There is no way around that fact, no matter what you argue. > The discussion on RIPE NCC providing more than just barebones registry > services, the way I see it, is really a question of “for the good of > the internet community as a whole” vs. “for the good of my bottom > line”. I agree (hence why I said I like the idea of a lot of these extra services). But they still benefit a big international ISP more than a small regional one. And the big international ISP usually has a lot more money, so having to pay 10x or even 100x the current LIR fee would in most cases be unproblematic (in some cases just a rounding error on their budget). I’m not saying “pay more for more resources” will be without problems. But I think it will be a LOT better than the current price model. -- Joachim

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