13 GROPPERA RADIO AG AND OTHERS v. SWITZERLAND JUDGMENT 2. The approaches to the International Telecommunication Union (a) The request for assistance from the Head Office of the PTT 41. In a letter of 20 January 1987 the Radio Rights Division (Head Office of the PTT) submitted a request for assistance to the chairman of the International Frequency Registration Board (International Telecommunication Union). It indicated inter alia: "In Italy, especially in the Po valley, there are a large number of private radio and television broadcasting stations transmitting on frequencies which have not been coordinated with the Swiss Post and Telecommunications Authority. This state of affairs contravenes Articles 2 and 4 of the regional broadcasting agreements (Stockholm 1961, Geneva 1984) and numbers 1214 and 1215 of the Radio Regulations, international agreements to which the Swiss and Italian authorities are parties. Some of these stations broadcast programmes and advertising designed for listeners in neighbouring Swiss towns and employ power exceeding that necessary to maintain economically an effective national service of good quality within the frontiers of the country concerned, contrary to number 2666 of the Radio Regulations. Furthermore, these private stations interfere with the proper functioning of Swiss radio services. To give a better picture of the situation, we are enclosing copies of the reports of harmful interference that we have sent to the Italian authorities (since 1984), pursuant to Article 22, Appendix 23 of the Radio Regulations. You will also find a summary table of Italian private radio stations which, through their presence on the airwaves, are preventing the implementation of our frequency allocations. For more than six years now, the various representations made by the Swiss PTT to the Italian authorities with a view to a co-ordination of effort have unfortunately produced no significant result. It is for this reason that before, if need be, taking the steps provided for in Article 50, number 189, of the International Telecommunication Convention (Nairobi, 1982), the Swiss authorities request the Board to take, as soon as possible, all necessary measures to remedy this situation." (b) The International Telecommunication Union’s reply 42. On 8 July 1988 the chairman of the International Frequency Registration Board sent the Head Office of the Swiss PTT a copy of a letter sent the same day to the Italian Ministry of Post and Telecommunications informing it that frequency allocations were being used in breach of the Radio Regulations and regional agreements. The most recent of the Board’s representations to the Italian authorities was made in a telefaxed message on 29 November 1988, which read: "1. The Board has yet to receive any information about the solution of the cases of harmful interference reported by the Swiss authorities. Similar cases of harmful interference have recently been reported by the authorities of two other States. 2. On behalf of the International Frequency Registration Board I wish to express serious concern at the apparent lack of progress in eliminating the harmful interference