Hi Councilors, I'm sending this email on behalf of the IDN EPDP Leadership Team in my role as the Council liaison to the Team. Last month, the IDN EPDP team received a request from ICANN org (Sarmad Hussain from GDS) to stabilize the EPDP Phase 2 recommendations related to harmonized IDN tables, namely Preliminary Recommendation 6 and Implementation Guidance 7 in response to Charter Question C5. According to Sarmad, the stability of these recommendations is a prerequisite to ICANN org launching the RSP program in November this year. You can find the email here: https://lists.icann.org/hyperkitty/list/gnso-epdp-idn-team@icann.org/message... [lists.icann.org] As a result of the request, the IDN EPDP Team agreed to prioritize our discussion of the nominated recommendations and the Leadership Team is confident that we can stabilize these to the satisfaction of the Team by the end of August. However, as the request suggests that implementation of these recommendations will occur before the IDN EPDP Team delivers its Phase 2 Final Report to the Council for consideration, the Leadership Team is concerned that this is procedurally unprecedented. Therefore, we believe it is appropriate to bring this matter to the attention of Council and seek the Council's guidance on the path forward. Best, Manju