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As reported last July, there is a proposal from some Flemish politicians to create a .vla top level domain under the new gTLD process launched by ICANN. The proposal further elaborated that the Flemish government would have to cover the costs.
Not so fast, says the Flemish government. According to this press article, it wants to be sure the market is large enough to justify pouring all that money into the ICANN process. They will hire a consultant to study the market and come up with a business case. Or not.
In this period of economic downturn, even wealthy communities like Flanders want to avoid expensive and risky investments. ICANN does not yet understand the message that it has to adapt its RFP to the actual economic context.
Some possible ideas:
I am well aware the above-mentioned article is quite misinformed in that it mixes up registry operators with registrars. Still, the core element of the cost vs risk of the new gTLD process is symptomatic of the concerns I heard from several wannabee registry operators.
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Just have them start speaking Catalan instead of Vlaamse. The .cat registry is already operational and didn’t cost as much.
(and anyone who has not seen the movie “In Bruges” should add it to their Netflix list)