European Agenda 01 2008 by Steffi Portfolio

WHAT’S ON IN POLITICAL BRUSSELS?

I S S U E 0 1 / 2 0 0 8

Belgique-België P.P.-P.B. 1099 Bruxelles BC 14354

Slovenia

The first new member state to take over the EU Presidency p. 6

European Agenda www.europeanagenda.eu

Energy

Agenda 2008

Depot Bruxelles X / Agreement number: P501403 / BC 14354 / ISSN 1862-2097 / Helios Media, Rue de la Charité 13–15, 1210 Bruxelles

EUROPEAN AGENDA 01/2008

Special on the events and players that shape Europe‘s hottest topic p. 33

Where we are headed in 2008: Europe‘s vital events and issues.

Interview

Janez Jansa‘s top advisor on Europe gives a preview of the incoming Slovenian EU Presidency p. 10

Events

A comprehensive overview of the highlights on the EU calendar for the first half of 2008 p. 13

People

Who is new: Recent personnel changes in the EU Who was where: Pictures of Brussels‘ recent top events p. 58

EDITORIAL EuropeanAgenda

The Miracle Workers

hen the clock strikes midnight on January

2004 surpassed that of almost all other European countries’ on their join-

ion history by becoming the ﬁrst of the new

In this edition of European Agenda, we will focus on the upcoming

1st 2008, Slovenia will make European Un-

ing the Union, including Portugal, which currently holds the Presidency.

member states to take up the EU Presidency.

EU Slovenian Presidency, discussing those political leaders who have

If everything runs according to plan, the

as to the rest of the European Union. Slovenia is in the perfect place to

EU will by then be engrossed in the proc-

ess of ratiﬁcation of the new Lisbon Treaty, which the Union cannot afford to let fail

made the country a prime example to all new member states, as well take on the challenge of peace and political stability in the region and throughout the EU.

You will also ﬁnd in these pages our Energy Special, in which European

like its predecessor. At the same time, the

Agenda addresses the most important issues from Energy Security to

settlement has not been reached then Slovenia and the European Un-

ergy industry, from European policy-makers to the oil and gas sectors

deadline for a peaceful solution in Kosovo will have passed, and if a

ion will risk another potentially unpredictable conﬂict in the Balkans involving both NATO and Russia.

These might be overwhelming challenges for such a young nation,

but ‘overwhelming challenges’ are something to which Slovenia has

Climate Change. Interviews with the most inﬂuential players in the ento the growing number of renewable energy associations, we hope this

will shed some light on increasingly one of the most crucial issues for the European Union today.

become well-accustomed. As the ﬁrst nation to join the European Un-

ion from the former Yugoslavia, it managed a small miracle in breaking

away from the time bomb of the Balkans, even maintaining a stable, democratic regime in spite of the political manoeuvring of its neigh-

bour states. What is more, Slovenia’s GDP per capita on joining the EU in

Rudolf Hetzel Publisher

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CONTENT EuropeanAgenda

Slovenia Typically Slovenian?

Slovenia Facts & Figures

Slovenia Political Leaders

Slovenia Presidency Interview

Agenda 2008

Topics Euro Adoption

Topics EU Accession

Energy Map

Energy Agenda 2008

Energy Interview with Exxon Mobil

Energy Global Tycoons

Energy Wind Energy

Energy Biofuels

Energy Nuclear Energy

People Winner and Loser

People Personnel Changes

People Gala

Topics Eurocrat’s Babble

Editor in Chief: George P. Kyriacou, Miguel Maia Editors: Rudolf Hetzel, Grit Fiedler, Elke Zander, Clemens zur Hausen, Jeff Katcherian, Isabel Mendes, Daniel Le Ray, Paul Thomas Graphical Concept: Stefﬁ Butter, Marcel Franke, Diana Steffens Layout: Stefﬁ Butter, Marcel Franke, Diana Steffens Illustration: Burkhard Piller

Photo Editors: Albrecht Noack, J. Nitz-Bessenrodt Cover: www.marco-urban.de Managing Editor: Max Obenaus, (max.obenaus@europeanagenda.eu) Advertising: Cristina Silva (cristina.silva@europeanagenda.eu) Publisher: Rudolf Hetzel

Interview on EU Presidency p. 10

Agenda March: EU Summit p. 18

Gala: Friends of Europe President’s Dinner p. 55

Editorial ofﬁce: 13-15, Rue de la Charité, B-1210 Brussels Tel.: +32 (0)2 219 22 90 Fax: +32 (0)2 219 22 92 E-mail: info@europeanagenda.eu www.europeanagenda.eu Helios Media SPRL 13-15, Rue de la Charité B-1210 Brussels Print: Druck Vogt GmbH, Schmidstraße 6, 10179 Berlin

— 5—

SLOVENIA EuropeanAgenda

Typically Slovenian? 84 liters According to ﬁgures from 2004, the average Slovenian will drink 84 liters of beer a year. That’s something like 23 dl a day, which is a full 10 dl less than the standard beer can of 33 dl. Surely no-where close to 43 dl the Czechs drink every day.

LUKA

If you happen to be born in Slovenia, chances are if you’re a boy that your name is Luka – the most popular boy’s name at the moment.

989,799

12% If you are from Slovenia, then there is a 12% chance that you live in the capi-

was the number of men in Slovenia in 2006, with a total population of 2,020,174.

tal city of Ljubliana. The second largest city, Maribor, is inhabited by 5% of the population.

18,180

In 2006 the lowest number of deaths after 1979 was recorded with only 18,180 people dying.

98.7

Life expectancy in Slovenia is on the rise, but with an average life expectancy of 74.8 years men live a full 7 years less than women.

Slovenia has 98.7 inhabitants per km2,

which is much lower than in the majority of other European states (460/km2 in the Netherlands, 195/km2 in Italy).

74.8 10%

Marriages are on the rise in Slovenia as

in 2006 over 6,300 marriages happened, almost 10% more than the year before.

— 6—

SLOVENIA EuropeanAgenda

A Country in Numbers

NIKA

A very popular name for a Slovenian girls nowadays is Nika.

44 liters As is to be expected, this southern, temperate, mediterranean country is quite into wine. The consumption of 44 liters/year is not far off the French, Italian or Portuguese one. But then again, the real country to

1,023,798 was the number of women in Slovenia in 2006.

beat is Lithuania.

90.1 Is the ratio between the Human De-

83.06% of all people living in Slovenia are native

velopment Index for women and men. Nika lives in the 25th best place women could possibly live in the world; at least as far as the difference between her quality of life and that of Luka.

Slovenes (2002 census). There are two national minority communities: Serbs (1.98%), Croats (1.81%) and Bosniaks (1.10%). Hungarian and Italian communities also rank in the several thousands of inhabitants.

49%

56% of Slovenians think they need a diet and 49% are doing something about it.

1.22

Luka and Nika will think twice before having

kids of their own. Slovenia has the 6th lowest birthrate in the world, with an average of 1.22 children/woman.

81.9

years is the average life expectancy of a woman in Slovenia.

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

SLOVENIA EuropeanAgenda

Slovenia Facts and Figures Capital City: Ljubljana

Other major cities: Maribor and Nova Gorica.

-2°

21°

is the average temperature in January

Ljubljana

is the average temperature in July

20,273 km2 roughly 2/3 the size of Belgium

46,6 km 2864 m coast line at the Adriatic Sea

is the highest mountain Triglav (the name means “three-heads”)

on 25 june 1991

on 15 january 1992

It did so 24 hours before the expected

munity recognises Slov-

Slovenia formally declared independence. date, wrong-footing Yugoslav military

response. A brief conﬂict, lasting only 10 days, followed before Slovenia received

broad international recognition as an independent state.

— 8—

1992

enia as an independent State on 15 January 1992

on 29 march 2004

on 1 january 2007

Slovenia joined

Slovenia joined the Eu-

NATO.

rozone and the Euro replaced the “Tolar” as

on 1 may 2004

Slovenia joined the

on 22 may 1992

European Union

Slovenia joined the

the ofﬁcial currency.

United Nations.

1994

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

2007

Fotos: archive

1991

The then-European Com-

SLOVENIA EuropeanAgenda

Slovenia Political Leaders prime minister: janzes jansa

president: danilo türk

pendence War in Slovenia, he

was elected President of the Republic on

The hero of the 10-day Inde-

The new President of Slovenia, Danilo Türk,

was elected Prime Minister in

November 11, beating his opponent Lojze Pe-

November 2004. Educated in

terle as he received 68.2% of the votes. He

Defense Studies to become

will take the Oath of Ofﬁce on December

part of the Yugoslav regime’s

23rd 2007. A former diplomat and Ambassa-

elite, Jansa’s views on unfair

dor of his country to the United Nations, Mr

treatment within the Yugoslav

People’s Army (YPA) ﬁrst got

Türk was nominated UN Assistant Secretary-

General for Political Affairs by then-Secre-

his works conﬁscated, and in

tary General Koﬁ Annan, an ofﬁce he held from 2000 to 2005. Despite his

Yugoslav authorities. Fear of popular unrest prevented the authorities

current Slovenian President, Janez Drnovsek. Drnovsek is regarded as a

1985 he was prosecuted by the

from going ahead with his arrest, but he lost any chance of ﬁnding employment and survived for two years as a mountain guide, away from the

capital city of Ljubljana. He made his way back into the defense and political system and in 1990 put in place the military apparatus that fended

off the YPA’s response to the Slovenian Declaration of Independence on

25 July 1991. In 1993 he was nominated leader of the Social Democratic

Party of Slovenia and after having been elected to the National Assembly. His ﬁrst governmental duty was as Defense Minister in 2000, under the government of Andrej Bajuk and in 2004 his party won the elections for

impressive victory at the polls, Mr Túrk will have a hard task replacing the sort of spiritual guru in Slovenia, who, after being diagnosed with kidney

cancer in 1999, changed his life remarkably by refocusing his attention to

the inner-most problems of the human condition. Despised by the political classes, whom he accused of spiritual shortsightedness, President Drnovsek has been quoted referring to current Prime Minister Jansa as “the

Prince of Darkness”. He is, nevertheless, one of the most popular public ﬁgures in the country and thus he is going to be a tough act to follow. Advertisement

the National Assembly, consequently nominating him Prime Minister.

foreign minister: dimitrij rupel

Dimitrij Rupel is the Foreign Affairs Minister in Slovenia and considered one of

the most seasoned politicians in Europe

to hold that position. He ﬁrst held the

��

Fotos: archive (2); Srdjan Zivulovic/Bobo

position from 1990 to 1993 during the independence process, and took it up again

��

in 2000. In his second term, he stayed for

4 years, until he was exonerated by Prime

Minister Anton Rop. He then joined the opposition Democratic Party

��

and when Janez Jansa won the elections later that year, he was reinstated in the position, only 6 months after he had left. Mr. Rupel stud-

ied Literature and holds a Ph.D. in Sociology with Brandeis University. His niece, Anja Rupel, is one of the most successful pop singers and songwriters on the Slovenian music scene.

��

— 9— annonce 8x8.indd 1

26/11/07 12:47:12

SLOVENIA EuropeanAgenda

Interview The Balkans at the Heart of Europe Janez Jansa’s top advisor gives European Agenda a sneak preview of the incoming Slovenian Presidency. by Rudolf Hetzel

lovenia will be the ﬁrst of the member

states that acceded to the EU in 2004 to

take up the Council Presidency. It is a mo-

What do you think will be the effect on the whole process of the victory of Mr Tachi in Kosovo?

The results have not changed the situation. It is our understanding that

mentous occasion for the Union as Slov-

there is a broad consensus among the various Albanian parties in Kosovo

Eastern European countries, but it is the

fact.

enia represents not only the Central and

ﬁrst Balkan country to be part of the EU.

concerning its status, and the victory of Mr Tachi does not change that

This question will certainly be the most difﬁcult one during our presi-

With looming prospects over the Kosovo

dency. We do not expect that the issue of Kosovo will be settled by the

tion to show the rest of the region that

year. We are getting ready for that, and our primary goal will be to estab-

issue, Slovenia is now in a perfect posithere is a way to peace, stability and to EU membership itself.

European Agenda met with Janez

Lenarčič, State Secretary for European

Affairs, and a top advisor to Prime Minis-

ter Jansa, to discuss the hottest issues for the ﬁrst presidency with a Slavic accent.

European Agenda: What will be the four main priorities for the Slovenian Presidency?

Janez Lenarčič: The presidency will work on a number of issues, but it

end of this year and it is more likely that it will spill over into the next lish and maintain a uniﬁed position on the issue. It is no secret that, at

the moment, member states don’t have identical views on how to solve this issue; we have to work together with the current Portuguese presi-

dency and continue into our presidency to forge and maintain the unity of the European Union. Kosovo is and will be a European issue, because

the EU is the entity that will have to live with the consequences of the Kosovo settlement for years to come.

If there were a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo, what would be the Slovenian presidency’s actions?

This is a hypothetical question, but it is one of the scenarios we are

will focus on four cardinal priorities. The ﬁrst will be the future of Eu-

working on. It is still too early to say what the EU action would then

of the accession negotiations and the role of the EU in general.

cember and there are still some meetings scheduled. We will see where

rope, which includes the ratiﬁcation of the new treaty, the continuation The second priority is the situation in the Western Balkans. This is of

great importance to Slovenia because it is the region that we have geo-

graphic, historical, cultural and all kinds of other links with. As you know, all the countries in this region have the European perspective and our

goal is to take important steps forward that will lead to the realisation of this ultimate objective, that will obviously take several years.

The next priority is Climate Change and the Energy Policy. This is one of

the most important challenges for the EU and there were very ambitious

be. We are still waiting for the report of the Contact Group on 10th De-

this process will come to and at the same time we are getting ready for

every situation and every scenario. We will try to follow our primary goal, which is ensuring uniﬁed EU action.

Are Kosovo and the situation in the rest of Eastern Europe and Central Asia going to be prominent topics of discussion during the forthcoming EU-Russia Summit?

There are very many issues on the agenda for EU-Russia relations,

goals set by the 2007 Spring Council meeting that require some follow-up

namely from the Common Foreign and Security policy, such as Kosovo

cuss at the March 2008 Summit will be the Lisbon Agenda that will come

also other areas like economic cooperation, raising the question of the

work on how to achieve them. The last objective that we will want to disinto its next implementation step, and we must follow that process too.

— 10 —

and all the other trouble spots and crisis situations in the world. There are

Partnership and Cooperation Agreement. There are chances, especially

SLOVENIA EuropeanAgenda

via other avenues, namely through alternative energy sources because

- no matter how we diversify our supply - the European Union’s dependence on imported energy supplies is wrong and this trend is something that has to be dealt with. The way to go about this is greater investment

in renewable energy sources, which is also an important part of our agenda. When I mentioned earlier the commitment made last March, I meant particularly the commitment to achieve 20% share of renewable energies. That binding target is set for the entire European Union and what remains to be done now is to ﬁnd the target for each individual

member state. One can imagine that it is not going to be an easy matter and it will require intensive consultations and negotiations on the basis

of the Commission’s proposals that we expect will be issued in January. This will all take some time because this falls under the category of legislative package to be reached under the co-decision procedure.

What do you think will be the Slovenian Presidency’s role in the ratiﬁcation process for the new Treaty?

The Presidency cannot ratify the treaty for other member states, what

it can do is show the right example. Our government intends to send the proposal for ratiﬁcation to our parliament immediately after the signature. And then we hope our parliament will ratify the treaty speedily to

show the way to other countries. We will also stimulate ratiﬁcation proc-

esses in other member states and we stand ready to assist whenever we are called to do so.

I think it is important that people understand that we cannot afford

to fail now, because we have been here before, and then the ratiﬁcaafter the new elections in Poland, to move forward again in the relationship with Russia.

This Summit will also be particularly interesting in as much as it will

come after the parliamentary and presidential elections in Russia and there will be a new president attending the meeting. Let me say that we hope everyone is aware of the importance of the democratic conduct of these elections.

What do you hope to achieve with 2008 being the year for Intercultural

again in a different way, but it is a treaty that is good for Europe.

How much of the Lisbon Strategy overlapped to the Lisbon Treaty, apart from the name, that is?

Well, maybe there will now be more confusion because of the “Treaty”

and the “Strategy”. I think you can ﬁnd the goals of the Lisbon Strategy all over the place in the text of the new treaty. I think there is no shortage there of Lisbon goals mentioned from the very ﬁrst articles onwards.

What needs more attention in the Lisbon goals is the budget for it. In

Dialogue?

2005, there was an agreement that the Commission would do a compre-

promote mutual understanding, dialogue and respect between people

more aligned with the Lisbon Strategy. But the time for that is not now

The primary goal of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue is to

living in Europe of various ethnic, religious, cultural and other backgrounds. If you take a look at the decision declaring 2008 the European

Year of Intercultural Dialogue, it sets a number of goals to be pursued by

hensive review of the budget for 2008-9 and that should, in my view, be because we need to have a treaty in place; we need to determine what we will do together before we can decide how we ﬁnance it.

As far as the Strategy itself is concerned, we believe that its renewed

the Member States in order to promote dialogue within our borders.

or revised form is now more effective with the mechanism that was put

and, in this context, the Presidency will take the opportunity to promote

grams that the Commission monitors and assesses. This mechanism has

Of course, intercultural dialogue can also have an external dimension

intercultural dialogue with third countries, especially with the Western Balkans, but also in the Euro-Mediterranean framework.

Going onto the issue of energy security, what is the importance of the Photos: private

tion process failed in two member states and we are now trying to do it

Nabucco Pipeline in your strategy?

Of course any measure that improves the diversity of energy supply is

beneﬁcial in the EU. The Energy Action Plan will be reviewed on an an-

nual basis, but, in the long run, energy security will have to be pursued

in place allowing the member states themselves to put in place proproved to be good because it gives the member states the initiative and

the Strategy has started to produce results and the economic perform-

ance of the EU in the last few years has been good, especially compared to other big economic players like the United States or Japan.

We don’t expect major changes in the Strategy; maybe just some ﬁne

tuning in some areas and a smooth transition to the next phase of the implementation.

— 11 —

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AGENDA EuropeanAgenda

AGENDA 2008 2nd EU Sustainable Energy Week

Photos: archive; Council of the European Union; www.albrecht-noack.com; Christina Pahnke/EPA

28.01.08 – 01.02.08

European Communication Summit 24.04.08 – 25.04.08

European Business Summit 13.03.08 – 14.03.08

European Patent Forum 06.05.08 – 07.05.08

— 13 —

AGENDA EuropeanAgenda

JANUARY

28.01.08 – 01.02.08

2nd EU Sustainable Energy Week Energy independence: Outlining foundations for the future

host: jointly undertaken by the european institutions and a wide array of private and public organisations.

Under the umbrella

ganised during EUSEW

efficiency which they

ergy Europe Campaign

stress the need for eve-

troduction of EU policy

of the Sustainable En-

(SEE), the EC’s DG TREN, the EU Institutions, the

Slovenian Presidency and major stakeholders concerned with sustainable

energy

are working together

to put on the second EU Sustainable Energy

Week. The events or-

— 14 —

in Brussels and beyond

ryone to work together towards a common goal. An extensive list

of key topics will be cov-

ered, highlighting the multi-sectoral nature

of sustainable energy

development, namely: from renewable energy sources to the energy

provide, from the into the local actions

which carry it out, from

distributed energy to planning, from tech-

nologies to markets, from legislation to so-

cietal behaviours and educational integra-

tion, architecture and transportation.

Photos: archive

location: brussels, belgium

AGENDA EuropeanAgenda

07.01.08 – 08.01.08

Opening of the Year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008 location: ljubljana, slovenia

The European Year of Intercultural Dialogue will be ofﬁcially opened

at an EU conference in

Ljubljana, Slovenia on the 7th and 8th of January 2008, as Slovenia is chairing the EU Presidency in

the ﬁrst half of the year. At this conference, stud-

23.01.08 – 27.01.08

31.01.08

World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008 location: davos, switzerland host: world economic forum

Europe’s Looming Demographic Crunch

For over three decades, the World Economic

Forum Annual Meet-

ing has provided an unrivalled platform for

leaders from all walks of

life to shape the global

location: bibliothèque solvay, brussels, belgium

This year’s Friends of

host : friends of europe

tactical policies can ad-

Europe “European Policy

Summit on Demographics” will discuss whether

dress profoundly structural problems and what

ies and research papers will be presented on the

agenda at the start of each year. At the core is

policy measures are needed to soften the impact

regards to integration and education. The Civil

collective wisdom of leaders from business, gov-

dress questions on whether the EU’s “Flexicu-

topic of intercultural dialogue, especially with Society Platform for Intercultural Dialogue will also present their political recommendations.

its multi-stakeholder model that leverages the ernment, the media, academia, the arts and civil society by building a global platform for collaboration and action to address priorities on the

global agenda. Under the motto “the Power of

Collaborative Innovation”, the Annual Meeting 2008 programme will also harness the experi-

ence of next year’s diverse and international CoChairs: Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the

Great Britain, James Dimon, Chairman and CEO,

of shrinking workforces. Furthermore, it will adrity“ is the ﬁrst sign of a workplace revolution, and for how long pensions and healthcare will still be affordable in Europe. Conﬁrmed speakers include: Joaquin Almunia, EU Commissioner for

Economic and Monetary Affairs; Aart de Geus, Deputy Secretary-General, OECD; Beverly Hughes, Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families, UK.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Henry A. Kissinger.

Intercultural Dialogue gets underway

further events

08.01.08 “Give Europe the means to grow -

budget review: reform or reshape?”, ALDE Group, EP, Brussels +++ 08.-11.01.08 New EU Member

Co-Chair Tony Blair

EU Commissioner Joaquin Almunia

States: Preparing for the Euro Introduction, Brussels, Frankfurt +++ 09.01.08 Blueprint Partners

5th Anniversary, Brussels +++ 09.01.08 “Compe-

tences of national, regional and local authorities with regards to urban transport”, Joint Seminar

Parliament: Session Committees Flags: National Holidays

Groups

External Parliamentary Activities

Conciliation Committee

ALDE and CoR; EP, Brussels +++ 17.01.08 Interna-

Photos: www.albrecht-noack.com; archive

tional workshop on ‘achieving and safeguard-

ing sound ﬁscal positions’, DG ECOFIN, Brussels +++ 20.-22.01.08 Informal Workshop on Climate

Change, Slovenian Presidency of the EU +++ 21.22.02.08 Poland at a crossroads: how can the economy beneﬁt more from EU accession?, DG

ECOFIN, Brussels +++ 27.01.08 – 30.01.08 5th

International Trade Academy Forum, Eurocham-

bres, La Hulpe, Brussels +++ 31.01.-10.02.08 7th Regulatory and Scientiﬁc Affairs Conference, European Generic Medicines Association, Brussels

week

month

January

SA Tuesday

— 15 —

AGENDA EuropeanAgenda

FEBRUARY

21.02.08 – 22.02.08

6th European Business Summit Greening the Economy: New Energy for Business location: tour & taxi, brussels, belgium

With the theme of

from various countries

son, Janez Potočnik;

new Energy for Busi-

CEO, Royal Dutch Shell;

host: federation of enterprises in belgium (feb) and businesseurope

ness’, the EBS 2008 will

ness) climate visions

focus on how Europe can turn a “carbon challenge” into business

opportunity, giving new energy to growth

and jobs. At EBS 2008, leading business and

political ﬁgures, NGOs, media and academics

— 16 —

will exchange (busiand present (eco) innovative

solutions.

Speakers will include: José Manuel Barroso, President, European Commission; EU Commissioners Jacques

Barrot, Stavros Dimas, Ján Figel, László Kovács, Peter Mandel-

Jeroen van der Veer, Jean-Cyril Spinetta, CEO, Air France-KLM; Fulvio Conti, CEO, Enel;

Jean-Philippe Courtois, President, Microsoft

International; Ian Hudson, President, DuPont

EMEA; Dennis Jönsson, President, CEO, Tetra Pak.

Photos: archive (3); Parlement Europeen; archive

‘Greening the Economy:

AGENDA EuropeanAgenda

07.02.08 – 08.02.08

EUA Experts Conference location: brussels host: european university asscociation

In an increasingly com-

petitive environment, Europe’s Higher Education Institutions must

find a way to become

financially sustainable.

This conference promises to unite experts from

12.02.08

19.02.08 – 21.02.08

ICT Standardisation 5th Worldwide Policy Conference Security Conference Europe must create an

location: ec charlemagne building

environment

which

meets both industry

needs and society’s ex-

host: european commission

pectations to promote

the competitiveness of

European industry while

across Europe to identify the key elements nec-

ensuring that all citizens can further beneﬁt

er Education Institutions in the future. Policy-

tion Society. Given the critical importance of an

essary for the ﬁnancial survival of Europe’s Highmakers, institutional leaders and researchers on

the topic will explore the links between funding

and autonomy, accountability and governance

structures, aiming to pinpoint the key features of sound costing systems.

The WCS5, organised by

location: world customs organization headquarters, brussels, belgium

the EWI in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan

and the World Customs

host: east-west-institute

Organization, is one of the largest and most

prestigious security con-

from the opportunities created by the Informa-

ferences. It will bring together 750 government,

efﬁcient European ICT standardisation policy,

the world to discuss the challenge of enhancing

the Commission is organising an open meeting

to present and discuss the recommendations of a recent study on ‘The speciﬁc policy needs for ICT standardisation’.

business and civil society leaders from around cooperation to ﬁght terrorism and violent ex-

tremism. The WCS5 will examine a broad range of views from around the globe on the responsibility of business, governments and people to create a new global architecture to face the challenge.

further events

05.02.08 CoR Bureau Meeting, CoR, Brussels

+++ 06.02.08 – 07.02.08 CoR Plenary Session,

EC Vice President Verheugen will open the conference.

CoR, Brussels +++ 07.02.08 Breaga: Award Win-

Michel Danet, Secretary General of the WCO

ning Irish Musicians, Irish Regions Ofﬁce, Brussels, Belgium +++ 11.02.08 – 13.02.08 Confer-

ence on e-Government, Slovenian Presidency of the EU, Brdo, Slovenia +++ 14.02.08 – 15.02.08

Parliament: Committees Session Flags: National Holidays

Groups

External Parliamentary Activities

Conciliation Committee

Photos: archive; www.marco-urban.de; archive

Conference on Cancer, Slovenian Presidency of

the EU, Brdo, Slovenia +++ 16.02.08 EU Studies Fair, European Voice, Brussels +++ 19.02.08

– 20.02.08 Biosimilars 2008, Brussels +++ 21.02.08 – 22.02.08 Informal Meeting of EU

Defence Ministers, Slovenian Presidency of the EU +++ 26.02.08 Lunch Debate on Competi-

tiveness, Forum for the Automobile and Society, Brussels +++ 26.02.08 – 28.02.08 Logicon Europe 2008, Brussels +++ 28.02.08 The Future of

the Franco-German Engine in the European Union, College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium

week

month

February

SA Tuesday

— 17 —

AGENDA EuropeanAgenda

MARCH

13.03.08 – 14.03.08

European Council Spring Summit Relaunching the Lisbon strategy under a new treaty When the Heads of

the Kosovo process

plementation of the

ment of the 27 EU

The Council meeting

will also prepare the

State and Governmember-states will in March 2008, the

ratiﬁcation process of

the new Treaty will of

course be one of the most important is-

sues to be discussed. On the international

front, the outcome and consequences of

— 18 —

will be on the agenda. comes a few weeks before the EU-Russia

Summit that will also

be addressed by the European leaders.

Internally, besides the

ratiﬁcation of the Lisbon treaty, the gathering will focus on

the new stage of im-

Lisbon Strategy and it

review of the Budget. This will be the ﬁrst

moment to analyze the achievements of

the European Year

for Intercultural Dialogue.

Photos: Council of the European Union

host: council of the european union

AGENDA EuropeanAgenda

12.03.08 – 14.03.08

World Biofuels Markets location: brussels expo host: green power conferences

With 1300 participants

from 58 countries attending in 2007, the

17.03.08 – 19.03.08

31.03.08 – 03.04.08

UIC Highspeed 2008 European Wind Energy Conference location: amsterdam rai exhibition and convention center

The 6th World Congress & Trade Exhibition on

High Speed Rail in Am-

sterdam will be the most important event in

The European Wind En-

Location: Brussels Expo

ergy Conference & Exhibition is widely recog-

World Biofuels Markets

the long distance passenger rail transportation

nised as the unique „Annual General Meeting“

largest gathering of

linked to the development of high speed rail

The 2008 event, to be held in Brussels from 31

Congress is Europe’s

biofuels professionals. Since its inception in 2006, the congress has grown exponentially to

become the must-at-

tend conference for in-

dustry experts looking

to share best practices and attract new clients. This year’s agenda includes over 200 top speakers and is organized into three streams with

and infrastructure business. All strategic issues systems will be addressed at this global event

organized by UIC, NS and ProRail, with all key players from the international transport scene

expected to attend. UIC HIGHSPEED 2008 follows ﬁve successful editions of this congress under the EurailSpeed brand name. This new brand name, UIC HIGHSPEED 2008, underlines the new global dimension of UIC’s railway cooperation activities.

for the international wind energy community. March to 3 April, will attract over 4,000 professional visitors and political delegations from 70

countries. Visitors represent all relevant parts of the decision making chain - from engineers, purchasers and analysts to political representatives and board members. It is the only event that

covers every key aspect of the wind market, giv-

ing unparalleled access to business contacts and unique networking opportunities.

ﬁve workshops. Several networking events are

also built into the program, offering participants plenty of time to meet new contacts and visit our 100 exhibitors. further events 02.03.08 – 05.03.08 PRFM 2008, European Nu-

clear Society +++ 04.03.08 – CeBIT, Expo Hanover +++ 05.03.08 – 06.03.08 Conference: Use of

Structural Funds for Enhanced Development of

Research Infrastructure, Slovenian Presidency of the European Union, Brdo, Slovenia +++ 05.03.08

– 06.03.08 COGEN Europe Annual Conference

Jaques Barrot

Andris Piebalgs

2008, European Association for the Promotion of Cogeneration, Brussels +++ 07.03.08 - 09.03.08

CEP Clean Energy Power 2008, REECO GmbH, Stuttgart +++ 11.03.08 The European Business Photos: www.ﬂickr.com; archive; European Commission

Awards, InterContinental Paris+++ 12.03.08

Parliament: Committees Session Flags: National Holidays

Groups

External Parliamentary Activities

Conciliation Committee

Concert of The Slovenian Philharmonic, Slovenian Presidency of the European Union, Brussels

+++ 11.03.08 – 13.03.08 Transmission & Distri-

bution Europe 2008, Amsterdam, The Nether-

lands +++ 18.03.08 – 21.03.08 28th International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency

Medicine, Erasme University Hospital, Brussels

+++ 19.03.08 3rd International Conference on Nanotechnology and Smart Textiles for Industry

and Fashion, The Institute of Nanotechnology, London +++ 19.03.08 The European Meeting industry Fair, Brussels Expo

week

month

March

SA Tuesday

— 19 —

AGENDA EuropeanAgenda

APRIL

24.04.08 – 25.04.08

European Communication Summit Conference and Gala for Europe’s PR professionals LOCATION: LE PLAZA, BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

The European Commu-

than 60 top speakers

ers; Christof Ehrhart,

ers the leading Com-

rate Communications

HOST: EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNICATION DIRECTORS (EACD)

munication Directors

and tools, methods

and Spokespersons for a two-day conference in Brussels. Participants come from

business, politics, as-

sociations and media

across Europe and will hear presentations and discussions from more

— 20 —

who debate strategies and best cases within the ﬁelds of Corporate

Communication, Pub-

lic Relations, Media Relations and political communication. Speak-

ers will include: Mike Davies, Global Director

of Communications, PriceWaterhouseCoop-

Vice President CorpoEADS; Elfrieke van Galen, Vice President Corporate Communications CSR, KLM. At the

evening gala, the Euro-

pean Communication Award will be presented to a campaign that

successfully promoted the European idea.

Photos: www.albrecht-noack.com

nication Summit gath-

AGENDA EuropeanAgenda

15.04.08 – 16.04.08

European Nuclear Assembly LOCATION: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

The European Nuclear

HOST: FORATOM-EUROPEAN ATOMIC FORUM

for politicians, industry

Assembly (ENA) provides an opportunity

experts and stakeholder representatives from

around the world to dis-

cuss the latest political, economic and environmental developments in the nuclear ﬁeld. The

21.04.08 – 25.04.08

24.04.08 – 26.04.08

European Road The EU in Transport Research International Affairs Arena - TRA 2008 TRA 2008 will be an op-

LOCATION: LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA

portunity for EU road

transport stakeholders

HOST: EUROPEAN COMMISSION, CEDR, ERTRAC

and researchers to discuss strategies to complete the process that

began at Goteborg’s

LOCATION: WORLD CUSTOMS ORGANIZATION HEADQUARTERS, BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

The Institute for Euro-

HOST: EAST-WESTINSTITUTE

(IEE) at the Université

pean Studies (IES) at the

Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB), the Institut

d’Études Européennnes

Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), the UN University programme for Compara-

Energy Policy for Europe (EPE), recently adopted

TRA 2006 of creating a true ‘European Road

tive Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS),

and climate change and recognises the central

plementation of the 7th EU Research Framework

Relations organise this conference. In line with

by the Council, forges a link between energy role that nuclear energy will play in promoting low-carbon energy and competitiveness. The

European Nuclear Energy Forum will aim for an

Transport Research Arena’. Coinciding with imProgramme (FP7), it aims to develop new technologies for better transport systems. Climate

change demands urgent responses, and com-

inclusive, transparent and non-ideological de-

petition is challenging Europe’s position in the

to the EU’s energy future.

together research partners, industry representa-

bate on the key contribution that nuclear makes

global road transport market. The event brings tives, NGOs and policy-makers to develop ideas on how to answer these and other challenges.

and the Egmont Royal Institute for International its overall objectives, it provides a forum for dis-

cussion and exchange of ideas among scholars that take an interest in understanding the interface between the EU and international politics

and law, as well as fostering exchange between

the scientiﬁc and the related policy communities, and both academics and the policy-making community are expected to attend the conference.

further events 02.04.08 – 04.04.08 Climate Protection and Renewable Energy: Medium and Small Communi-

ties facing the Challenge, European Climate Con-

EU Transport Commissioner Potocnik

ference, Rovigo, Italy +++ 03.04.08 – 04.04.08

Conference “Public Finances in the EU”, EC, Brussels +++ 08.04.08 – 10.04.08 Euromaintenance 2008, European Federation of National

Parliament: Session Committees Flags: National Holidays

Groups

External Parliamentary Activities

Conciliation Committee

Photos: archive; European Commission; archive

Maintenance Societies, Brussels +++ 09.04.08 Conference: Social Impact of Education and Vi-

sion 2020, Slovenian Presidency of the European

Union, Brdo, Slovenia +++ 14.04.08 – 18.04.08

GSMP World Wide Spring Event 2008, Brussels, Belgium +++ 17.04.08 – 18.04.08 East meets

West 2008, European Patent Ofﬁce, Vienna, Austria +++ 22.04.08 – 24.04.08 European Seafood Exposition, Brussels +++ 24.04.08 – 25.04.08

European Forum for In-House Counsel, European Company Lawyers Association, Brussels +++ 27.04.08 NATO Summit, Bucharest, Romania

week

month

April

SA Tuesday

— 21 —

AGENDA EuropeanAgenda

MAY

06.05.08 – 07.05.08

European Patent Forum and European Inventor of the Year Advancing Innovation in Europe LOCATION: GRAND HOTEL UNION, LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA

The European Patent

intellectual property

Brussels in 2006, and

an Inventor of the Year

into account political,

ond year. Speakers in

HOST: EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE, EUROPEAN COMMISSION

by the European Pat-

2008 are co-organised

ent Ofﬁce, the government of Slovenia, the Slovenian Intellectual

Property Office and the European Commission. The Euro-

pean Patent Forum attempts to examine

— 22 —

holistically, taking

social, ethical, techno-

logical, environmental

and historical factors. Jointly organised by the European Patent

Office and the European

Commission,

the European Inventor of the Year Awards were ﬁrst presented in

in Munich in its sec-

2007 included Angela Merkel and Günther Verheugen.

Photos: Christina Pahnke/EPA; archive

Forum and the Europe-

AGENDA EuropeanAgenda

16.05.08 – 17.05.08

EU-LAC Summit LOCATION: LIMA, PERU

High level meeting of

Heads of States and

Governments between

the EU-Latin America & Caribbean (LAC). The last EU-LAC Summit took place in Vienna (May

2006). The summits are unique occasions to

have a dialogue at high level, addressing important issues to the partnership between both

regions. At each Summit, the Heads of State and Government adopt a Declaration, containing

joint policy statements and commitments regarding the cooperation between both regions.

15.05.08 - 16.05.08

06.05.08 - 08.05.08

IRU World Congress

e-Health without Frontiers This conference organ-

LOCATION: LJUBLIANA, SLOVENIA

ised by the European

Institute for Health

HOST: EUROPEAN INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH RECORDS

Records will focus on topics which contribute

Road transport’s indis-

LOCATION: ISTANBUL, TURKEY

pensable role in enhancing prosperity, wealth

HOST: INTERNATIONAL ROAD TRANSPORT UNION

distribution and social relations between regions

and nations. The congress includes speeches

to connecting eHealth

by Binali Yildirim, Minister of Transport of Turkey,

to demonstrate oppor-

Union, and Jamal Saghir, Director, Energy, Trans-

tools and users. It aims

tunities, achievements and challenges of the

implementation of electronic healthcare, and to

deﬁne as clearly as possible future directions for

the further development of eHealth in Europe. On May the 5th satellite events such as national eHealth conference and events will be organised by European associations and projects.

Mikhail Gorbachev, Former President of the Soviet

port and Water, World Bank, on May 15th. On May

16th (after sessions on, for example, “Make your road transport operations more efﬁcient, proﬁta-

ble, safer and more secure”), Renate Sommer, MEP, Martin Marmy, IRU Secretary General, and others

will discuss on “The Silk Road – A link between the Asian, European, CIS, Middle East, North, Central and South American economies”.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU Commissioner for External Relations

further events 15.05.08-16.05.08 Adapting EU Trade Law to the

Mikhail Gorbachev

Challenge of Globalisation, Academy of EuropePhotos: European Parliament; www.ﬂickr.com; www.marco-urban.de

an Law +++ 16.05.08 European Policy Seminar: Exporting education: Europe‘s role in transnational education, Academic Cooperation Asso-

ciation (ACA), Brussels +++ 19.05.08 – 30.05.08

Parliament: Session Committees Flags: National Holidays

Groups

External Parliamentary Activities

Conciliation Committee

UN Conference on Biodiversity 2008, Bonn, Germany +++ 21.05.08 – 22.05.08 Training: The Europeanisation of Prison Management, European

Institute of Public Administration, Bratislava, Slovakia +++ 23.05.08 – 24.05.08 Conference

on Disability, Slovenian Presidency of the European Union, Ljubljana, Slovenia +++ 27.05.08

Conference: „Reforming the Budget, Changing Europe“, DG ECOFIN, Brussels +++ 27.05.2008

European Neighbours‘ Day, CECODHAS - European Liaison Committee for Social Housing, 725 towns in Europe

week

month

May

TH FR

Tuesday SA

— 23 —

AGENDA EuropeanAgenda

JUNE

11.06.08 - 12.06.08

Employment Week 2008 Discussing Employment Trends in Europe Employment

HOST: TARSUS GROUP

employment and social

Week

hundreds of employ-

providing participants

its 15th year, provides a

discuss the achieve-

learn more about the

2008, now celebrating

forum for all European

affairs stakeholders. In 23 sessions, the Employment Week 2008 will aim to unlock the

dialogue between the political decision mak-

ers, business leaders, social partners and

— 24 —

ment practitioners to

ments of current European employment policies and trends, as well as exchange ideas on

how to create synergy between all the stake-

holders. A wide range of conference topics illustrated by concrete case-studies aims at

with the chance to employment trends and initiatives in the

European Union. Each session will allow am-

ple time for discussion and debate which will

provide the opportunity to inﬂuence future

initiatives that will impact your activities.

Photos: archive

LOCATION: MANAGEMENT CENTRE EUROPE, BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

AGENDA EuropeanAgenda

03.06.08 – 04.06.08 03.06.08 – 05.06.08 18.06.08 – 20.06.08 Reform to Perform LOCATION: OECD CONFERENCE CENTRE, PARIS, FRANCE HOST: OECD

The OECD brings togeth-

er the governments of countries committed to

democracy and the mar-

ket economy worldwide

to support sustainable economic growth, boost

employment, raise liv-

Green Week LOCATION: CHARLEMAGNE BUILDING, BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

After the success of

HOST: EUROPEAN COMMISSION

niversary of the Treaty of

Green Week 2007, which was linked with the festivities for the 50th an-

Rome and looked back at 50 years of European environmental policy as

ing standards, maintain

well as at the future, Green Week 2008 – organ-

other countries‘ eco-

a unique opportunity for debate, exchange of

ﬁnancial stability, assist

nomic development and

contribute to growth in

world trade.The OECD Forum is a „multi-stake-

ised by the European Commission – will provide

ACI EUROPE Annual Congress

Aéroports de Paris will

LOCATION : CARROUSEL DU LOUVRE, PARIS, FRANCE

host the 18th ACI EU-

ROPE General Assembly, Annual Congress and Ex-

hibition & ACI EUROPE

HOST: INTERNATIONAL ROAD TRANSPORT UNION

Best Airport Awards. Traditionally attracting up to 450 senior level

directors from Interna-

experience and best practice among non-gov-

tional airports, government bodies, associations,

levels of government and the public.

sembly, Annual Congress & Exhibition addresses

ernmental organisations, businesses, various

suppliers and more, the ACI EUROPE General As-

the most topical and challenging issues facing

holder summit“ which

the airport sector. The Annual Congress, hosted

brings together business

by Aéroport de Paris, will deliver a prestigious

OECD Secretary General and labour leaders, civil Angel Gurria

line-up of speakers and ﬁrst-class French hospi-

society personalities, gov-

tality making it an occasion not to be missed.

ernment ministers and leaders of international organisations to discuss the hottest issues on the international agenda. It takes place in conjunction

with the annual OECD Ministerial Summit and

aims to a more prosperous, stable and sustainable future with its title “Reform to Perform”. further events 02.06.08 Conference on e-Justice & e-Law, Slov. Pres. of the EU, Portoroz, Slovenia +++ 02.06.08 - 06.06.08 16th European Biomass

Conference and Exhibition, ETA - Renewable

Commissioner Wallstroem at the Green Week 2007

ACI President Paraschis

Energies, Valencia, Spain +++ 04.06.2008 06.06.2008 ITS in Europe Congress and Exhibi-

tion, ERTICO - ITS Europe, Geneva, Switzerland +++ 04.06. – 06.06.2007 ECOMM2008, Lon-

don, UK +++ 11.06.08 - 13.06.08 AESGP 44th

Parliament: Session Committees Flags: National Holidays

Groups

External Parliamentary Activities

Conciliation Committee

Annual Meeting, AESGP, Stockholm, Sweden +++ 12.06.08 - 13.06.08 9th Light Rail Con-

ference, UITP, Istanbul, Turkey +++ 15.06.08 - 17.06.08 ACA Annual Conference, ACA, Tallin, Estonia +++ 16.06.08 - 17.06.08 Eurelec-

tric Annual Convention & Conference 2008, Barcelona, Spain +++ 16.06.-18.06.2008 Joint Photos: archive

AISAM-ACME Congress, Helsinki, Finland +++

22.06.08 - 25.06.08 7th World Surfactants Congress, CEFIC, Paris, France +++ 30.06.2008 - 30.07.2008 45th IFLA World Congress, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands

week

month

May

Tuesday SA

— 25 —

- www.alde.eu - www.adle.eu

ALDE supports

www.stopthetrafﬁk.org Sign the petition! Your vote counts! Help us collect 1 million signatures on the Global Initiative to Fight Trafficking, which is to be presented to the UN Secretary-General in February 2008.

For more information please consult www.alde.eu/humantrafficking © Designed by Lara Szpiro Images © belpress.com

TOPICS EuropeanAgenda

Euro Adoption: Adopting or Adapting?

Orchestrating the transition. Communicating a streamlined Euro introduction by Member of the European Parliament, David Casa and Editorial Adviser and Press Officer at the EP, David Stellini

he Maastricht Converge Criteria‘, in all

plement the nitty gritty details of the action plan within the sectors they

to mind when ‘euro adoption’ is men-

to work in concert with each other in order to make their bookkeeping,

likelihood is the ﬁrst term that springs

tioned. Many will probably recall their

ﬁrst acquaintance with the euro notes and coins back in 2002. However, for a

member state aspiring to adopt the euro, it means far more than placing its economy on a sound footing and later passing

represent. The government, the banks and the commercial sector have

cash management, and payment systems euro compliant. Given that, the IT systems are usually not only integrated within an organisation it-

self but also feed into other organisations’ IT systems, the euro adoption warrants not only extensive modiﬁcations but also that such modiﬁcations between organisations are in synch with each other.

the ‘test’. Long before the member state

communication is key; both within and without!

ro it would have most certainly invested

under way, every single person within an organisation is involved in the

and communication strategies, which in

be it TV, radio, newspaper, magazines, websites, telephone help lines, web

receives the green light to adopt the euheavily in early, thorough preparations

the end would pay off in terms of speed of the adoption, public acceptance of the euro and smoothness of the transition.

an extraordinary event warranting an extraordinary action plan …

The adoption of the euro touches upon almost every as-

pect of our lives; it has administrative implications for the

government, for the banks and for the commercial sector; a logistical aspect both to circulate the new banknotes and coins and to mop up the old ones; a psychological aspect

since money per se is not just a store of value, but is one of

the most fundamental factors in our lives that establishes and maintains a feeling of well being and independence; a social facet since weaker groups in society struggle more

than others to get to grips with it. Finally, there are mar-

As soon as an action plan is decided, and technical preparations are well

process. The public at large is informed through a plethora of channels, chatting, conferences, seminars or public meetings. An information campaign targets the general public and speciﬁc campaigns focus on particular

target groups, such as vulnerable groups, elderly, children and consumers. These groups are informed through specialised tools including

The government, the banks and the commercial sector have to work in concert with each other .

keting issues at play, since the adoption itself removes of

ad hoc publications, web portals, corporate and information meetings, one-to-one meetings, speciﬁc seminars as well as focused advertising and public relations initiatives.

The information campaign evolves into a series of ‘hands

on’ training and education programmes, preparing citizens

to familiarise themselves with the euro notes and coins as

well as to learn the difference between numerical values

of the euro and the ‘soon defunct’ national currency. These programmes target different stakeholders including private

organisations, self employed, teachers and educators, social workers and community leaders, so that they act as multipliers to spread their knowledge to their fellow people.

a trade barrier between the member state and the single market, and

mandatory dual display of prices

market position. From which ever angle you look at it, the key to a suc-

it of prices or salaries. Mandatory dual display — before and after adop-

other words, all stakeholders within the member state have to get round

and services in euro and understand pricing practices in the new cur-

hence after the adoption, businesses ﬁnd themselves in a much bigger cessful euro adoption is the convergence all these aspects together. In the table, agree on an action plan and see it through together.

an ‘airy fairy’ action plan?

The euro adoption is undoubtedly technical in nature, and hence the

stakeholders do not only choose their priorities and goals but also im-

Consumer conﬁdence is boosted through mandatory dual display, be

tion — helps consumers become acquainted with the value of goods

rency. Slowly they learn to think in euro and be able to compare prices even before the euro becomes legal tender.

keeping a close eye on prices…

Dual display helps consumers monitor and judge whether a particular

— 27 —

TOPICS EuropeanAgenda

january

business entity is adhering to its obligations. They can report any practic-

2002

ﬁed price rises that they believe is related to the euro. The government

es concerning wrongful display of dual prices and any concern or unjustiinvestigates these cases individually and in case of a price increase related to the introduction of the euro the retailer is approached to remedy the situation.

2007

The government monitors the prices and publishes average prices

found for products on newspaper and websites so that consumers check

2008

the pricing benchmark and are able to discern whether the outlet is actually cheaper or more expensive than the average.

2009

indeed, the psychological aspect as well!

bound to

However, notwithstanding all government’s efforts against wrong

dual display and price abuse, the human mind does play tricks at least when one is ﬁrst faced with euro prices. Prices may seem higher or lower when shown in euro (depending on the exchange rate between the na-

not bound to

tional currency and the euro), because the numerical values (prices) of

the products changes although the purchasing values obviously do not.

The member states that joined the EU after the Maastricht Treaty (2002) have committed themselves in their Accession Treaties to adopt the euro when they meet the convergence criteria. Denmark and the UK were granted an ‘opt out’ clause from the European Monetary Union in the Maastricht Treaty.

formal application procedure to adopt the euro The member state formally asks the European Commission and the

European Central Bank to report on its progress in fulﬁlling the “Maastricht” convergence criteria. On the basis of a proposal by the Commis-

sion, and after consulting the European Parliament, the Council decides

The euro adoption changes not only the ‘physical’ notes and coins but

even one’s ‘monetary language’. There are cog-

The “mental” changeover takes considerably more time than the physical changeover itself.

nitive, emotional and practical issues at play

and as such, preparation and practice ensures that what customers take for granted before

the adoption — in their ability to handle their

daily budget — continues to be the case after

the changeover itself. Consumers have to use, plan and budget in euro with conﬁdence and ease and start ‘thinking euro’, months before

they start paying in euro. The extent to which they are able to make the mental leap much

depends on their willingness and ability to

maastricht criteria

reference rates

Price Stability

Inﬂation rate not exceeding by more

cal changeover itself. Five years on, the Euro Barometer survey results

three best performing countries

when doing day-to-day shopping, and only 29 per cent ‘most often’ think

Below the reference value of 3 % of GDP

The “mental” changeover takes considerably more time than the physi-

still show that only 57 per cent of respondents ‘most often’ think in euro in euro when doing ‘exceptional’ purchases.

By and large, these ﬁgures show that euro adoption is not only about

passing the Maastricht ‘test’ or adopting the ‘physical’ euro notes and coins, but rather more about adapting to it!

Public Debt

Below or approaching the reference

Long Term Interest Rates

Not exceeding by more than 2 per-

Authors

performing countries in terms of

European Parliament and formerly an Information Ofﬁcer with the

value of 60 % of GDP

centage points that of the three best price stability.

David Stellini is the Press Advisor within the EPP-ED Group in the

National Euro Changeover Committee, Malta. david.stellini@europarl. europa.eu

Exchange Rate Stability

Participation in ERM II for at least

Further to the above criteria, the Treaty requires an examination of the compatibility of the country‘s national legislation with the relevant provisions of the Treaty.

— 28 —

MEP David Casa (epp-ed, mt) is the rapporteur at the European Parliament on Slovakia’s bid to join the euro zone in January 2009.

Photo: European Parliament

Budget Deﬁcit

than 1.5 percentage points that of the

deal with change.

��

TOPICS EuropeanAgenda

EU Accession Croatia’s take on EU pre-accession assistance — A dynamic learning process —

by Iva Frki & Dalibor Dvorny

roatia is regarded as well advanced

on its way to the European Union. The

process became very dynamic as soon as the country intensified relations

with the EU at the beginning of this decade. Prompt signing of the Stabilization and Association Agreement en-

sued and was followed in early 2003

by an application for EU membership. Already by June 2004 candidate country status was awarded to Croatia and

by October 2005 EU accession negotia-

tions were launched. Having become a candidate country in late 2005, Croatia

jumped the train of pre-accession assistance programmes PHARE, ISPA and SAPARD, in place for the period 2000-

2006. In a relatively short time span, the pre-accession scenario in Croatia

thus gained in complexity, with different policy tools interacting in order to bring the country closer to fulﬁlling EU membership criteria. Today accession negotiations are proceeding at a high speed, a variety of

pre-accession programmes are being implemented simultaneously, and the reform processes are probably at their peak.

While it is difﬁcult to point at a precise date of its EU accession, there is

no more doubt either abroad or inside Croatia that the country is head-

ing precisely for the European Union. A factor guaranteeing Croatia’s European direction is political consensus of all parliamentary parties on ject of political debates. Most parties support fast accession, fearful of

seeing the door to the EU close in the face of challenges further (south)

east. Such political consensus is quite an achievement in a young coun-

try whose electorate shows a rather volatile opinion on the EU, usually inﬂuenced by the current Zagreb-Brussels relations.

— 30 —

Photo: www.ﬂickr.com

this topic. Regardless of domestic politics, EU accession is hardly an ob-

TOPICS EuropeanAgenda

along the negotiations’ highway

Another guarantee of a continued high speed of accession negotia-

process is taking place among domestic actors in charge. Efforts by the

ess. The speed of negotiations must have a stronghold in dynamic policy

mentation steps in after a successfully completed programming period.

tions is EU ﬁnancial assistance supporting the internal accession procreforms; this is where the pre-accession assistance steps in. So far, substantial resources have been allocated to this purpose. Croatia has ben-

eﬁted from 262 million EUR through the programme CARDS (assistance

state administration will have to be intensiﬁed as the process of imple-

The challenge ahead lies in including a greater number of actors from the state administration into the management and use of EU funding.

In the face of these challenges, one should consider Croatia’s per-

for post-war reconstruction and stabilization) during 2001-2004, 252

formance record so far. In previous episodes of managing EU funds, the

through PHARE, ISPA and SAPARD, and is entitled to further 592 million

Croatia is a country in which decentralized management of EU funds

million EUR in 2005 and 2006 for a wider scope of investment purposes

EUR in the period 2007-2010 under the new pre-accession programme

IPA. The country is performing very well in terms of absorbing this assistance, extended by ﬁve different programmes operating under quite

dissimilar principles. The latest figures indicate that 97% of CARDS funding has been contracted. Entire PHARE and ISPA allocations have been assigned to specific projects and similarly high contracting figures are

expected in their case. The process is not seamless but the administration is adapting in order to address issues as they emerge.

The pace of learning is in fact becoming more steady with the onset of

IPA. The aim of this new programme is to prepare future Member States

state administration has shown it is capable of change and of learning. was allowed on a pilot basis already under CARDS. Having shown a good

“ EU funds both help improve state administration and speed up governance improvements and enhance the system of governance as a whole.”

for effective management and use of the EU Structural Funds. In order

performance there, Croatia went ahead with a relatively speedy proc-

of rules ensuring strategic programming, transparent management and

decentralized manner. It is currently undertaking steps for a similar ac-

to do so, payments under IPA are conditioned upon fulﬁllment of a set

effective implementation. In this manner projects and programmes ﬁ-

nanced through IPA have a double impact: their outputs are valuable

ess of accreditation for managing all of CARDS, PHARE and ISPA in that creditation for the management of IPA funding.

in terms of helping fullﬁl accession criteria while their implementation

rising to the twin-targeted challenge

long run greater impact of all public funding.

are conducive both to the current as well as to the upcoming Euro-con-

IPA principles beneﬁcial to domestic policymaking and policy delivery

tion has never been more challenging and dynamic than now, with ac-

method transfers good EU practice into domestic policy, ensuring in the

are the following:

∞ multi-annual planning of priorities, investments and budget;

∞ introduction of partner institutions and their consultation in all phases of the process;

∞ strengthening of inter-institutional cooperation and opening up scope for synergies;

∞ transparency of procedures and clear division of responsibilities among stakeholders;

∞ strong coordination by lead institutions which are able to provide support and guidance and to defend national interests in

negotiations with the EU.

In concluding, two core instrumental observations can be made which

text Croatia is confronted with. Firstly, working in the state administracession approaching. It is empowering to know that one’s work directly inﬂuences the pace of that accession. Secondly, challenges arising from the process of managing EU funds do not only point out to necessary

improvements in the functioning of the state administration; they can

in fact speed up these improvements and enhance the system of governance as a whole. If EU pre-accession programmes are understood

as being more than just additional investment money, they become a catalyst of change in domestic policymaking. As a small country with

relatively young institutions and a good learning record so far, Croatia

is well placed to make the challenges of this EU assistance (and of IPA

in particular) work in its favour, enhancing governance and speeding up the accession process as it does so.

Ms. Iva Frki

Mr. Dalibor Dvorny

in Iowa, USA and a Masters degree in International

tions from Institut Européen des Hautes Etudes In-

MA in international relations from Grinnell College

Relations and European Studies from the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Working at Photos: private

Insight into Croatia’s management of IPA so far suggests a learning

the Central Ofﬁce for Development Strategy and Co-

ordination of EU Funds of the Republic of Croatia on projects supporting regional development.

MA in European Studies and International Relaternationales (Nice / Berlin). Working at the Central Ofﬁce for Development Strategy and Coordination of EU Funds of the Republic of Croatia on projects in the transport sector.

— 31 —

10.02.08 – 13.02.08 PIME 2008

27.02.08 – 28.02.08

ENERGY EuropeanAgenda

ENERGY

SPECIAL

Map Energy Stakeholders in Brussels

Events Energy Top Events in Europe in 2008

Interview Michael Lane, Exxon Mobil

Portraits Global Energy Tycoons

Wind Energy Interview with Christian Kjaer, EWEA

Biofuel Energy Reconsidered

Nuclear Energy Pro and Con

27.02.08 – 28.02.08

Climate Change Conference

31.03.08 – 03.04.08

European Wind Energy Conference LOCATION: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

HOST: EPSILON AND CEPS

HOST: EUROPEAN WIND ENERGY ASSOCIATION

Photos: www.ﬂickr.com; archive

LOCATION: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

— 33 —

ENERGY EuropeanAgenda

Map:

Energy Associations & Companies in Brussels

E DES

ARTE

E NT A VEN U

U RU

E R EG

A LO

BD D

RU E

B ELL

DU L

RU E

IAR D

MON TOY ER S TR.

LUX EM

B OU

PARC

LEOP OLD

16 17 28 33 42

ASSOCIATIONS

2 AEGPL 165 Bld de Souverain 3 AquaFed 6 Rond Point Schuman 4 Assoelettrica 1 Avenue de la Joyeuse Entrée 5 Cable Europe 41 Avenue des Arts 6 CEDEC 55 Rue Royale, box 10

7 CEER 28 Rue le Titien 8 CEWEP 12A Bld Clovis 9 COGEN Europe 98, Gulledelle 10 eBIO 106 Rue Joseph II 11 EDORA 7 Rue de la Revolution, 12 EFET 93 Rue Le Corrège 1 EGEC (REH) 63-65 Rue d’ Arlon

— 34 —

14 EHI

20 EPCA

153-155 Colonel Bourg-

270 Avenue de Tervueren

straat 15 ELCFED 80 Bld A. Reyers 16 Energie-Cités 157 Avenue Brugmann 17 ENGVA 200 Avenue Louise 18 ENS 57 Rue de la Loi 19 EPBA 204 Avenue Marcel Thiry

1 EPIA

1 ESHA (REH) 63-65 Rue d’Arlon 1 ESTIF

33 EURIMA 375 Avenue Louise, box 4 34 EUROBAT

(RHE) 63-65 Rue d’Arlon

(REH) 63-65 Rue d’Arlon

22 EPPSA

28 ETN

35 EUROFUEL

80 Avenue de l’Opale

30 Rue Saint George

12 Rue de la Rosée

204 Avenue Marcel Thiry

23 EPTDA

29 ETSO

36 EUROGAS

5 Pegasuslaan

15 Bld Saint-Michel

4 Avenue Palmerston

1 EREC (REH) 63-65 Rue d’Arlon 25 EREF 73 Avenue de la Fauconnerie 7 ERGEG 28 Rue le Titien

30 EURACOAL

37 EUROGIF

168 Avenue de Tervueren

4 Rue de l‘Industrie

1 EUREC Agency (REH) 63-65 Rue d‘Arlon 32 EURELECTRIC 66 Bld de l‘Impératrice

38 EUROHEAT &

POWER

300 Avenue de Tervueren

Photo: www.sxc.hu

1 AEBIOM (REH) 63-65 Rue d’Arlon

ENERGY EuropeanAgenda

46 39 45 19 34 23

14 59 63

BD E RS REY STE

U AUG

12 51

PARC

SCH

UM AN

DE C

I NQU A NT ENA

I RE

49 3

COUNCIL 4

73 20

30 38

66 29

COMPANIES 39 European Energy

Forum

7 Avenue Ariane 15 EUTurbines 80 Bld A. Reyers 1 EWEA (RHE) 63-65 Rue d‘Arlon 42 FEDARENE 11 Rue du Beau Site 18 FORATOM 57 Rue de la Loi 44 GIE 83 Rue Ducale

45 HFP

48 BP

55 EnBW

63 Hydro ASA

49 TVO

204 Avenue Marcel Thiry

11 Rond Point Schuman

60-62 Rue Belliard

83 Avenue Marcel Thiry

6 Rond Point Schuman

46 NEW IG

49 British Energy

56 Enel SpA

64 IBERDROLA

71 Texaco

204 Avenue Marcel Thiry

6 Rond Point Schuman

13 -14 Avenue des Arts

12 Avenue de la Renaissance

25 Avenue Arnaud Fraiteur

29 UCTE

50 Czech Power

57 ENI

65 Repsol YPF

72 Total

15 Boulevard Saint-Michel

39 Square Vergote

43-44 Boulevard du Regent

1 Place du Trône

52 Rue de l‘Industrie

51 E.ON AG

59 ExxonMobil

66 RWE AG

73 Vattenfall

60 Avenue de Cortenbergh

2 Hermeslaan

273 Avenue de Tervueren

8 Avenue de Tervuren

52 EDF

60 Fortum

67 Schlumberger

74 Veolia

21 Avenue des Arts

17 Rue de la Charité

4 Rue de l‘Industrie

26 Rue des deux Eglises

53 Edison

61 Gaz de France

75 Shell International

75 VNG

3 Avenue des Nerviens

39 Rue des Deux Églises

15-23 Ave Arnaud Fraiteur

7A Avenue Edmond Mesens

54 Electrabel

62 GE

68 Siemens

8 Boulevard du Régent

2-4 Rond Point Schuman

69-71 Rue d‘Arlon

52 Wingas 21 Avenue des Arts

48 Statoil 11 Rond Point Schuman

— 35 —

ENERGY EuropeanAgenda

ENERGY EVENTS 2008 28.01.08 – 01.02.08

07.02.08 – 10.02.08

EU Sustainable Energy Week LOCATION: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM HOST: EUROPEAN INSTITUTIONS AND A WIDE ARRAY OF PRIVATE AND PUBLIC ORGANISATIONS

Bioenergy World Europe ’08

Under the umbrella of the Sustainable Energy

Europe Campaign (SEE), the EC’s DG TREN, the EU Institutions, the Sloveni-

an Presidency and major stakeholders concerned

with sustainable energy are putting on the sec-

ond EU Sustainable Energy Week together. The events organised during EUSEW in Brussels and

beyond cover key topics that highlight the mul-

ti-sectoral nature of sustainable energy develop-

ment and stress the need for everyone to work together towards a common goal.

LOCATION: VERONA, ITALY HOST: BEES, BIOENERGY EVENTS & SERVICES

Four days of exhibitions and conferences

dedicated to bioenergy (liquid, solid and gaseous) held in conjunc-

tion with Fieragricola,

a major international agriculture exhibition. www.bioenergy-world.com

26.02.08 – 27.02.08

The Future of the Carbon Market

www.eusew.eu

25.02.08 - 27.02.08

10.02.08 – 13.02.08

PIME 2008 LOCATION: PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC HOST: EUROPEAN NUCLEAR SOCIETY

PIME, the conference on Public Information Materials Exchange, is the

annual meeting place for professional nuclear

communications personnel from around the

world. The programme includes the essential issues of the moment and the latest communication techiques, a line-up of quality speakers and ample opportunities for sharing information and discussion.

www.pime2008.org

27.02.08 – 28.02.08

Climate Change Conference

Intelligent Energy Conference 2008 HOST: SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS

The Intelligent Energy

(IE) Conference and Exhibition showcases advanced

solutions,

services and processes

designed to maximise

oil and gas recovery, as

LOCATION: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM HOST: THE INSTITUTE OF ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

Market liquidity and the

price of carbon are of key concern as businesses adapt to the new regime

and take long-term stra-

LOCATION: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM HOST: EPSILON AND CEPS

This annual event is a

collaboration between Epsilon and CEPS and

is built on the principle

of creating a forum for

tegic decisions. In addi-

honest exchange of ideas between stakeholders

ploration and Production (E&P) chain. In the ple-

with regulatory uncertainty as political leaders

ers from member state and EU level. Key topics to

tor E&P, Shell), Helge Lund (CEO Statoil), Andrew

the EU ETS beyond 2012. This conference provides

well as optimising efﬁciency throughout the Exnary session, Malcolm Brinded (Executive Direc-

Gould (Chairman and Chief Executive Ofﬁcer, Schlumberger) will present their visions and experiences with intelligent energy.

www.intelligentenergyevent.com/

tion, they must also deal

debate the extension of the Kyoto Protocol and a platform for participants to discuss and debate the ﬁnancial and practical implications of the

carbon trading market and sheds new light on the ways in which individuals and companies intend to react to these changing times. www.marketforce.eu.com/carbon/

— 36 —

from across the EU and beyond, and policy-makbe discussed are as follows: post-2012 after Bali

and before the Hokkaido G8 summit; progress

of EU-integrated energy and climate package, burden-sharing renewables and technology; EU Emissions Trading Review with a focus on investment; and Transport.

www.climate-policy.eu

Photos: www.photocase.de; www.ﬂickr.com

LOCATION: AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

ENERGY EuropeanAgenda

07.03.08 – 09.03.08

12.03.08-14.03.08

Clean Energy Power World Biofuels Markets Congress LOCATION: STUTTGART, GERMANY

For the ﬁfth year, worldwide experts will meet

31.03.08 – 03.04.08

European Wind Energy Conference

in order to exchange

The European Wind

periences from the practice and offer advice

Exhibition is widely rec-

know-how, present ex-

Energy Conference &

gained through research and development, en-

ognised as the unique

suring this knowledge is quickly transformed in-

“Annual General Meet-

to action. The innovation conference takes place

ing” for the international

over two days parallel to the CEP trade fair.

wind energy community.

www.cep-expo.de

15.04.08 – 16.04.08

European Nuclear Assembly

LOCATION: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM HOST: GREENPOWER CONFERENCES

opment, is conﬁrmed to

Photos: www.ﬂickr.com; archive; www.aboutpixel.com

HOST: FORATOM

organised by FORATOM, provides an opportunity for politicians, industry

experts and stakeholder representatives from

around the world to discuss the latest political, economic and environmental developments in the nuclear ﬁeld. High-level speakers will fo-

World Biofuels Markets

panies from the entire global biofuels value chain

HOST: EUROPEAN WIND ENERGY ASSOCIATION

www.worldbiofuelsmarkets.com

to business contacts and unique networking op-

els Markets Congress. The

All-Energy 2008 Conference LOCATION: ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND HOST: BRITISH WIND ENERGY ASSOCIATION, SCOTTISH RENEWABLES FORUM

All-Energy ’08 combines

the UK’s largest renew-

able energy exhibition and a conference covering all renewable sources

tions from 70 countries. It is the only event that covers every key aspect

of the wind market, giv-

ing unparalleled access

portunities.

www.ewec2008.info

21.05.08 – 22.05.08

16th European Biomass Conference LOCATION: VALENCIA, SPAIN

Over 1,500 participants

from more than 80 countries are expected

the industry. It incor-

throughs in the ﬁeld. The conference will be

and opportunities facing porates H208, with its

worldwide nuclear development.

by UK Energy Minister, Malcolm Wicks MP.

Applications in Transportation & Power’ keynote www.all-energy.co.uk

tors and political delega-

to attend the16th European Biomass Conference

theme ‘Hydrogen & Fuel Cells in the Real World -

www.ena2008.org

4,000 professional visi-

as well as the challenges

cus on investments and economics, security of

supply, climate change, public perception, and

expected to attract over

address the World Biofu-

21.05.08 – 22.05.08

ternational conference

ergy, Andre Piebalgs and LOCATION: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

to Brussels every year.

Assembly (ENA), an in-

Commissioner for En-

culture and Rural Devel-

biofuels congress and attracts all the major com-

The European Nuclear

is chaired by the EU

Commissioner for Agri-

Congress has grown rapidly into Europe’s largest

LOCATION: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

The 2008 confererence

Mariann Fischer Boel,

& Exhibition and learn about the latest break-

chaired by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Schmid, Chairman of the Executive Board of ISET, Council Member of the WBGU (Advisory Council on Global Change to the German Government).

www.conference-biomass.com

— 37 —

ENERGY EuropeanAgenda

Interview The Challenge of a Growing Energy Demand European Agenda meets with Michael Lane, Global Environmental & Health Manager at ExxonMobil, to talk about Energy Efficiency and Climate Change by Miguel Maia / Elke Zander

ExxonMobil is the world’s largest private oil company.

was that it did not involve the developing world and without their in-

comparable to the nominal GDP of countries such as Swit-

cause it will not be sufﬁcient. It is certainly not sufﬁcient to stabilize

The scale of its operation is truly global and its turnover is zerland, and larger to that of Austria or Denmark.

Regardless of its commercial success, it is ExxonMobil’s

alleged stance on Climate Change that has come under

volvement and support, it does not matter what everyone else does beCO2 at the 550 parts per million (ppm) range that most scientists seem to think is a reasonable level.

the spotlight. European Agenda met with Michael Lane,

eventually, do you believe that 550 ppm level of atmospheric co2 is

Downstream and Chemical to talk about energy efﬁcien-

I am not an expert in that area, but I listen to experts and they say that

ExxonMobil’s Global Environmental & Health Manager, cy and its importance to an oil and gas company. Before

that, however, the European Agenda ﬁrst tried to ﬁnd out more about ExxonMobil’s position on Climate Change.

changing. is that true?

Michael Lane: We haven’t changed our views on

climate change. In the past we have been critical of the Kyoto Protocol because we did not think that it

was the best way to tackle the problems and a lot

people interpreted our position as denying climate change which is an issue that we do take very seri-

ously. We are aligned with the IPCC on this topic, there is increasing evidence that the world has warmed, by approximately 0.6 — 0.7 ºC over about

the last 100 years. There are two major contributors to that effect that we understand and appreciate: the

increasing use of fossil fuels and demand for it and,

if you really had the whole world cooperating, you applied today’s technologies, as a bridge, whilst really aggressively working on long term technical solutions you can probably limit the temperature rise to a few

degrees. But there are huge “ifs” there and I am not qualiﬁed. It is pos-

european agenda: many analysts claim that that

exxonmobil’s position on climate change is, itself,

possible?

sible, but will it happen? I do not know.

It might sound strange that an oil company would want to reduce the use of its product. Our challenge is to �nd the oil and gas to meet the growth that we know is going to be there.

secondly, the signiﬁcant changes in land use that happened through deforestation and agriculture.

do you believe there is a direct link between carbon dioxide (co2)

The fact of the matter is that we cannot meet the

world’s future legitimate need of energy without increas-

ing the use of fossil fuels. This can lead governments to attempt to pick technology winners while, according to us, the best approach is to design policies for technology neutral drivers.

can you give us an example of one of those drivers?

The emission trading scheme is an established EU policy.

They have put in place a system of CO2 allowances the trading of which leads to a market value of CO2, but they have not told us how we go about the reduction. They have given a ﬁnancial incentive to reduce the amount

of CO2 and left it to the experts to ﬁgure out the most

cost-effective, the best way of doing that. And that is a

message that we do like to pass to legislators around the world. Let the market ﬁgure out the best solutions.

emissions and this rise in temperature?

your energy outlook for 2030 states that oil, gas and coal produc-

answer, but we do know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that there is

co2 emissions is also unavoidable?

I am not an expert in climate science and I cannot give you a deﬁnitive

a greenhouse effect, it is reasonable to take precautions.

Our main criticism as a company to the Kyoto Protocol, for instance,

— 38 —

tion will unavoidably increase. does this mean that an increase in

No, but let me answer the question in two parts. Looking at our Out-

look, we know that in order to meet the future world needs for energy,

ENERGY EuropeanAgenda

there will need to be an increase use of fossil fuels, and the most concerning one from a climate standpoint is coal. So, let us say that “if you

produce all this extra fossil fuel, there is going to be all this extra CO2”

technical terms

and that is potentially true. The gains in energy efﬁciency will help offset the growth in CO2 production, but they will not eliminate it.

In that period and presumably towards the end of that period, large

emitters’ best shot at capping the CO2 emissions is through Carbon cap-

ture and storage and there are basically two main ways of doing that: One is to re-inject carbon dioxide into depleted oil or gas reserves, the

other area that is less well tried is to actually just use an empty cave. The problem is that the historic sites of power plants in particular were built

either close to raw materials or to ports or close to consumers and its not obvious that close to those sites there will be the right holes in the

ground. Building big pipelines and compressing and pumping CO2 large distances to ﬁnd the right hole is very expensive.

exxonmobil expects that there will be a 50% to 60% increase in over-

you mentioned the gains in energy efﬁciency. what does an oil and

the developing world, particularly India and China.

gas producer stand to gain from being efﬁcient and, therefore, selling less of its product?

That is what people say: the more oil that gets used the more oil you

At the end of that period, around 80% of that demand will still be met by fossil fuels, about 60% of which will come from oil and gas.

will sell, but we do care a great deal because the costs of using oil are

the hcci (Homogeneous Charged Compression Ignition [check name])

swer about the CO2 emissions. The directors of our company, in the mid-

tal difference between diesel and petrol engines is that every engine

enormous for us too. Well, now we come to the second part of my an1990s re-launched our energy efﬁciency campaign at a time when the

oil prices were still very low, which showed great foresight. It is a program that involves a group of expert engineers that go to a facility and look at the whole operation from the efﬁciency point of view. We are an

energy intensive industry and about 40% of our costs in our reﬁnery are energy related.

what about your partnership with the car manufacturers?

Let’s talk CO2. As oil producers, our industry only controls about 15% of

the lifecycle CO2 emissions from producing transport fuel. The remain-

is a cross between a diesel engine and a petrol engine. The fundamenhas explosions inside it that make the pistons go up and down but in the diesel engine there is no spark, and it’s just the compression of the

fuel that produces enough heat to explode inside the cylinder. That is good for efﬁciency but not particularly good for emissions. In a petrol engine you need a spark to start the explosion. That is not as efﬁcient

but it means you can get lower emissions with the same temperature. The idea behind HCCI is to have a new kind of fuel that can achieve the explosion without a spark and the clean burning of petrol. The efﬁciency of that system, we believe, is of about 30%, which is enormous.

ing 85% comes from their consumption in the vehicles. But 15% of an

the onboard reforming is kind of a bridge to a hydrogen fuel cell

lars every year with our own energy bill and the sorts of savings we have

vehicle. In a fuel cell you essentially take hydrogen and oxygen. When

enormous quantity is still a very large amount. We spend billions of dolalready achieved since the mid-1990s is something like $750 million a

year, savings that are good for the environment and for the operating

costs. We are in a very cost competitive industry and if reducing our costs enables us to pass on those savings to our customers this would be why we do it for ourselves. But not only! Of course it is better for the environment to reduce the CO2.

as far as we understand, the energy efﬁciency of exxonmobil is very much related to the company and not to the end user?

It might sound strange that an oil company would want to reduce

the use of its product. Our challenge is to find the oil and gas to Photos: www.sxc.hu

all energy demand over the next 25 years. About 80% is likely to be in

powered car where the hydrogen is made from conventional fuel in the

you combine them together in a fuel cell they release energy and they combine to produce water. At the point of use, the only emissions is water vapor. It’s a “zero carbon system”.

The problems it has, apart from the basic cost of fuel cells is the supply and distribution of the hydrogen fuel. If you make it from electricity and if you get the electricity from oil or coal, all you have done is move the emissions from one place to another, from the vehicle to a power station somewhere else

Part of our research is also looking creating organisms that use to power of the sun to produce hydrogen instead of oxygen.

meet the growth that we know is going to be there. The best way

cogeneration is the simultaneous production of electricity and heat,

gest oil company, but we only cover 4% of the world’s oil - is to make

the demand of heat and energy in the reﬁnery is met with the steam.

for us to contribute to the world, in our small way - we are the big-

efficient fuels that will help our customers save money, help the environment and eventually help us meet the growing demand for oil around the planet.

usually in the form of steam, and the real beneﬁt is that a very large of It is possible to make electricity and then recover all the heat and use it to a signiﬁcant extent. It saves up to half the CO2 output.

— 39 —

ENERGY EuropeanAgenda

What we found was that we did not have within our company the core

expertise in that area and we therefore decided to not to pursue those opportunities ourselves. Moreover, the current range of technology has some serious limitations and therefore we felt it was better to put our efforts into areas where we have some real expertise.

Because of our size, our impact is greater if we are concentrating on

our area and working with our partners and the people that use our

products to improve their efﬁciency. We also ﬁnance the Global Energy

and Climate Project (GCEP) at Stanford University that is leapfrogging current alternative energy solutions with studies in the ﬁeld of improved

technology to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. ExxonMobil is

contributing over €1 million and provide expert technical guidance to the CO2ReMoVe project. Over ﬁve years, CO2ReMoVe will evaluate a range of

technologies to monitor the injection and storage of CO2 in four loca-

tions, in European and Northern Africa. For instance, ExxonMobil shares in the ownership of the North Sea Sleipner gas ﬁeld where over one million tons of CO2 have been sequestered each year since 1998.

focusing now on other region of the world, what do you feel should be the approach to china’s growing demand for oil?

If you assume that the Chinese economy grows in the way it has and

large-scale photovoltaic energy and even - one of my favorites – with

how it is expected to do and then you said that all of that energy was

could even plug in your ipod. Hydrogen also offers great opportunities

meet their energy demand and increase without any signiﬁcant increase

nano-sized photovoltaic cells so that, in your jacket for instance, you long-term, but there are huge technical and economic obstacles. So, we

are focusing in 2 areas: being as efﬁcient as you can with our traditional

fuel and gas areas; and supporting research programs that explore new

alternatives. Just from our internal energy efﬁciency program we saved

I believe with some of the new technologies we are helping to develop we will eventually move to a low carbon majority source of energy. enough CO2 to be something like a third of the wind power in Germany

provided by today’s most efﬁcient technology, the Chinese could literally in CO2. This is not directly about China; it is just a very powerful way of illustrating the capability of today’s technology to make a huge impact.

The barriers to China doing that are commercial, funding issues. This

is where politics gets really important, because we cannot do that as a company.

are you also expanding your inFluence in other poorer regions? what is your presence there?

We are expanding our capacity in China but also elsewhere in Asia and

the Pacific. We are not specifically investing in refineries in India yet but

we are certainly providing products into India through our Asian facilities, so are supporting energy demand growth in the developing world.

The area where we are doing it in a slightly different way is in Africa.

which is the biggest wind power country in Europe. We could never hope

There is a venture that we have developed in Chad and in Cameroon

know best and save an equivalent amount of CO2. We prefer doing it

package that helps ensure that the big revenue that will come from the

to invest in that much wind power, we can do that through what we through the exploration of technologies we already have sound knowl-

edge in and that we’ve been doing for some time now, such as carbon capture and sequestration.

going back to ccs, how should one eventually get rid of this co2?

aren’t we creating a problem that is similar to that of nuclear waste, creating another waste that we then do not know how to treat?

I believe with some of the new technologies we are helping to develop

where we, in cooperation with the World Bank, put together a financial oil in Chad actually finds its way to the poor people of the country and benefits their economy.

It is probably best if we try to do that rather than divert it into other

activities. So we are mainly helping in Africa through the upstream development. Moreover, we are involved in a number of social projects in the countries where we operate, regarding malaria and campaigns on HIV.

we will eventually move to a low carbon majority source of energy and

Michael Lane

years. How much time are we buying through sequestration and storage

Chemical Engineering from Cambridge Uni-

stream? My guess is that nobody can answer that question right now,

in 1976. Following several management as-

we will get through the fossil fuel age whether that lasts 50, 100 or 150

to develop low carbon energy sources that are really viable and mainbecause the other question we cannot answer is how long the oil is going to last.

We know that we have used one third, so we probably have two times

the historic total ever consumption of oil available. That does not mean it will last another 300 years, but it does not mean it is going to last only 20 or 30 years.

what is your cooperation with the eu institutions in that ﬁeld?

There’s a program called CO2ReMoVe, a major European research ini-

— 40 —

Holding degrees in Natural Sciences and

versity, Michael Lane joined Exxon Chemical signments at the Fawley Reﬁnery (England, Brussels, USA), he returned to Fawley as

chemicals manufacturing director in 1993, whilst being UK Chairman for ExxonMobil

Chemical Ltd in 2000. After working as Safety, Health & Environment Manager for ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemicals since 2002, Mr Lane

became Global Environmental & Health Manager for the Downstream & Chemical businesses, worldwide, in 2003.

Photo: private

what is exxon’s presence in the renewable energy sector?

tiative into the long-term potential for carbon capture and storage (CCS)

ENERGY EuropeanAgenda

Portraits Global Energy Tycoons Who is who in the global energy market?

by Clemens zur Hausen/ Elke Zander

s the price for oil and gas is reaching record levels, the

list of billionaires around the world is more and more crowded by people who make their fortunes from energy. Forbes.com estimates that there are more than 40 billionaires who earn at least some of their money

from oil and gas. But also renewable energies can make

∞ Born 1957 in Drohobych, Ukraine, married, 2 children

∞ Holds a Ph.D. in mathematics, has been director at the Institute of Advanced Pneumatics in Moscow

you rich. European Agenda presents some of the world’s

∞ In 2004 bought the largest private collection

taken from the Forbes list The World‘s Richest People

closed for the sale, but a price tag of $100-

most inﬂuencial energy tycoons. (Note: Net worths are

2007 www.forbes.com/lists/2007/10/07billionaires_

The-Worlds-Billionaires_Rank.html – with the volatile energy prices, they may have ﬂuctuated since then.).

roman abramovich (net worth: $ 18.7 bil)

∞ Born 1966 in Saratov, Russia, divorced, 5 children

∞ World´s richest oil and gas tycoon

∞ Began his business career selling plastic ducks ∞ Owns Chelsea Football Club

∞ Other than most people in Europe think,

the name is stressed on the third syllable (Abramóvich)

mohammed al amoudi (net worth: $ 8.0 bil)

∞ Born 1946 in Dessie, Ethiopia, lives in Ethiopia and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

∞ Bought oil reﬁneries in Sweden and Morocco, before that he made a fortune in construction and real estate

∞ Has been honoured with the Swedish Royal

Order of the Polar Star and holds an honorary doctorate in Philosophy from Addis Abeba University

∞ Sponsors Africa‘s oldest football cup competition, now known as the Al Amoudi Senior Chal-

Photos: private

viktor vekselberg (net worth: $ 10.4 bil)

lenge Cup

∞ honoured by the World Bank for his work in supporting African development

of Fabergé imperial eggs. No price was dismillion has been rumoured.

∞ He is described by Forbes as a „deal junkie“

dan l. duncan (net worth: $ 8.2 bil)

∞ Born 1933 in Shelby County/Texas, USA, lives in Houston/Texas, married, 4 children

∞ Lived the “American Dream”: Company started with 2 trucks in 1968, today it owns 34,000 miles of pipelines

∞ Raised by his grandmother and her preaching: “Do the best you can every day”

∞ Loves hunting, has caught 360 species on 6 continents

∞ Donated $100 million to the Baylor College of Medicine in 2006

shi zhengrong (net worth: $ 2.2 bil)

∞ Born 1963 in Yangzhong, China, lives in Australia, married, 2 children

∞ Founder and CEO of Suntech Power, specialized in producing photovoltaic cells

∞ Scientist, holds a Master in laser physics and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering

∞ He “never thought this solar business could take off or become commercially viable.

I thought I just needed to (…) publish papers to do my job as a scientist.”

— 41 —

ENERGY EuropeanAgenda

Wind Energy No More Time for the Future Christian Kjaer, the CEO of the European Wind Energy Association shares his views on energy, peace and the future of Europe by Miguel Maia those resources in the next few years; the big question is what is it go-

for the future. But with climate change and gal-

At this point we know that, depending on the size of the installation,

ising prospect for an alternative energy source

ing to cost? And we do not know.

loping oil and gas prices many argue that there

wind energy can produce electricity from €5 cents to €9 cents per kilowatt-

the corner, it is now. European Agenda met with

proximately €6.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. In terms of oil, with the prices

is no more time - the future is not only around

the CEO of the European Wind Energy Association, Christian Kjaer, to understand whether wind energy can rise to the challenge.

The estimated global economic growth in the next decades is going to require a growth in the demand for energy. How can this be tackled?

The challenges are different between developed and developing coun-

tries. For developing countries, the challenge is whether they can leapfrog

in terms of technology. Developing countries have just as much right to

prosperity as the rest of the world, but if they go about it as we have done, it is going to kill our planet.

China installed 100,000 megawatts of power generating capacity and

most of it was coal. This is something that has to change! Of course we

hour. With current prices, fueling a new gas power plant alone costs ap-

of the oil barrel at $80, fueling a new power plant would turn costs up to €6.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. In the end, it is incredibly irrelevant whether oil and gas will last. The real issue is what it is going to cost and when it peaks. When it happens we will not have any alternative other than to turn to renewables because we will not be able to afford the alternative.

Oil, however, actually has many other important applications for plas-

tics, medicine, and even for components that make cars lighter. In fact, using and burning oil in a combustion engine or in a power plant is a waste of a wonderful product.

Do you agree with the idea that carbon capture is going to play a big role in solving the CO2 emission problem in the future?

No, I do not. If we look at the science in this, the Intergovernmental Panel

should not forget that the developed world spent 100 years emitting

on Climate Change says that we need to limit the temperature rise to 2ºC

happen in a different way. I think wind energy’s role in that is to act as an

tween 10 and 15 years. In Europe, there are some demonstration projects for

CO2 into the atmosphere, but for these fast-growing economies it has to

example, showing people that there is not necessarily a contradiction between protecting the environment and gaining economic prosperity.

The challenge in the European Union and the rest of the developed world

is different because here we have an established energy infrastructure.

and that the window of opportunity in which we can act is something be-

Carbon Capture and Sequestration which are expected to be ready by 2012. Even if these projects work wonderfully, between now and 2020 they will not contribute anything inside this window of opportunity.

There is, nevertheless, an opportunity ahead of us, as we are facing two

How do you see the Nobel Peace Prize going to the IPCC and to Al Gore?

rope is going to run out of its natural lifetime. This is extremely important

the awarding of this prize is that climate change is a security issue and

installed capacity has been wind energy and about 50% has been with gas.

gating CO2 emissions, especially as we are now seeing the increasing

decades where part of the installed electricity generating capacity in Eubecause, if you look at the last ﬁve years, just in the EU, 30% of the new This means that Europe is already waking up to the problem.

The outlook foresees an increase in the demand for coal and oil at

I think it was a good choice. The most powerful message contained in

has repercussions on peace. It is not only about environment and mitibattle for the remaining resources.

least until 2030. Is this unavoidable?

Christian Kjaer (CEO, European Wind Energy Association)

have a technology that can compete economically. Of course coal and

er CEO in 2006, of the EWEA. He is also Director of the European

The challenge for the wind energy industry will be to show that we

oil will play a role but it is not about whether we are going to have

— 42 —

Kjaer moved from journalism to become Policy Director, and latRenewable Energy Council and the Global Wind Energy Council.

Photo: private

ind energy has asserted itself as the most prom-

� ��

��

ENERGY EuropeanAgenda

Biofuel Energy Biofuels reconsidered after the recent bashing Over recent months biofuels seem to have lost their positive image, as enthusiasm receded and critics started to doubt the positive effects of fuels produced from biomass. European Agenda takes a second look. by Clemens zur Hausen

idea more than 100 years ago: why not use fuel from

biomass for car engines? So his ﬁrst engine (presented at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900) ran on peanut

oil, much to the astonishment of scientists and engi-

neers. The famous ‘Model T’ by Henry Ford from 1908 ran on bioethanol, Ford had the vision that “the fuel of the future is coming from apples, weeds, sawdust, al-

most anything.” In the 20th century, however, cars ran on petrol – due to the large, cheap supply of crude oil.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the situation has changed tre-

neglected is that hydrogen requires a totally different infrastructure in

of the main oil-regions are politically erratic, while in other regions it

seems to be a longer-term solution to Europe’s fuel problems whilst bio-

mendously. The price of oil has almost reached $100 per barrel and some is much more expensive and environmentally unfriendly to get oil out of the earth (like deep-sea-drilling or removing oil out of tar sands in

Canada). On the other hand the demand for fuel is rising dramatically, as more and more people are driving cars ( just think of China).

In the words of Robert Vierhout, Secretary General of the European Bioeth-

anol Fuel Association (eBIO): “It will require tremendous sacriﬁces both environmentally and economically to get crude oil. And that means that alter-

native fuel becomes more and more attractive. The other big advantage of

terms of car engines and in terms of the distribution of fuel. So hydrogen

fuels, on the other hand, can easily be used within the existing infrastructure: “We can easily blend them into the existing fuel streams, they can

be easily used in cars if you respect certain thresholds, and we can make them now, immediately, and use them immediately,” Vierhout stresses.

biomass for biofuels: reducing dependence on fossil fuels for the future

But what about the social impact of biofuels? Cultivating more crops

biofuels of course is that you can reduce CO2 emissions from cars.”

for biofuels means fewer crops for food, which, some critics argue, makes

biofuels: providing an immediate solution to an immediate problem?

crops are due to bad harvests and rising demands in China and India

For those reasons, the European Commission has set up the goal of

having 5.75% of the total fuelstream in Europe coming from biological sources by 2010. Is that a realistic goal? Vierhout is doubtful: “If you

look at what has been achieved so far and what still needs to be done

by 2010, you could well argue that it is impossible to achieve this goal, simply because most Member States started much too late.” So while France, Germany or Austria for example will easily reach the target of 5.75%, Europe as a whole is most probably going to fail.

“So what?” a number of critics recently stated, arguing that the ecologi-

cal impact of biofuels is overestimated and that Europe should instead concentrate on newer technologies, like hydrogen. But what is often

— 44 —

prices for food rise. Although this is only partially correct (price rises for rather than to biofuel prodiction), this is why many hope for the so called

“second generation” of biofuels and ethanol, made of straw or specially grown energy crops like certain grasses or trees, instead of wheat or

maize. Vierhout asserts: “if we can master this, we have an abundance of

biomass available to produce biofuel. In general, it is possible, the technology is there, but it is still quite expensive. That´s why we believe it will take some more years before it will be commercially available.”

From this point of view, biofuels are not THE solution to all of Europe´s

energy problems in the transport sector, but they can be part of the strategy to reduce dependence on crude oil.

Photo: CE/Reporters

udolf Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine, ﬁrst had the

ENERGY EuropeanAgenda

Nuclear Energy Pro and Con Rebecca Harms, MEP, The GREENS

Alejo Vidal Quadras, MEP, EPP-ED nuclear energy: The cost-effective and safe way to ﬁght climate change

Nuclear is today broadly recognised across the EU as a key to enhancing

supply security, a producer of electricity at low, stable and predictable costs

talk of renaissance

The 2007 update of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report commis-

and a way of helping combat climate change. Underlining the latter of

sioned by the Greens in the European Parliament shows that, in stark con-

the Reul Report on ‘Conventional Energy Sources and Energy Technology’

energy is in decline. The shrinking in Europe is particularly notable, with

these points, the European Parliament recently adopted by a large majority

recognising the role of nuclear as “the largest low-carbon energy source in Europe”. Nuclear energy along with renewables and coal with carbon cap-

ture and storage, if proven economically and technologically viable, could form a triumvirate of low-carbon energy technologies able to provide the

majority of Europe’s future electricity supply. More concerted effort also

trast to the claims of the nuclear industry and talk of a renaissance, nuclear ten power plants permanently withdrawn from the network since the last

report in 2004. With fewer plants being built and existing ones becoming more decrepit, it seems clear that the grandiose ambitions of the industry will remain in the realm of fantasy.

The gap between the expectations promoted by the nuclear industry and

needs to be made in areas of efﬁciency.

reality are perfectly highlighted by the bungled attempt to build a new

provider of base-load energy to millions of homes and businesses, and

Europe in 15 years has been blighted by problems. After only two years of

With around 32% of Europe’s electricity nuclear, it is the most important

indirectly a driver of job creation across the EU. Playing such a vital role,

it is imperative to look seriously at how to plan for the future of nuclear. As world-leader in nuclear energy technology and innovation, the vast ex-

perience of Europe’s nuclear industry is being utilised within the EU and

reactor at the Olkiluoto plant in Finland. This ﬁrst new nuclear project in construction the project is already two years delayed. The budget is set to overrun by at least 50% - 1.5 billion Euro in losses - and shocking errors in key technical speciﬁcations.

Apart from the fact that the industry fails to deliver on its promises,

by emerging economies across the globe in building new power plants. To

nuclear energy is fraught with risks which have in no way diminished. At-

energy industry is necessary for business and citizens alike.

misleading and dangerous. It is wrong to try and counteract the risk of glo-

help sustain this, assured and clear political support for the EU’s nuclear

I applaud the European Commission in the establishment of the Euro-

pean Nuclear Energy Forum (ENEF) and the High Level Group (HLG) on

Safety and Waste Management as well as the Sustainable Nuclear Energy Technology Platform (SN-ETP). These initiatives underline the seriousness

of the EU’s planning the way forward for the use of nuclear in years to come, and such action has not come soon enough. ENEF should provide

a platform for direct interaction between the nuclear industry, investors

and decision-makers. Involvement of other stakeholders, including those less favourable to nuclear energy, will offer great potential for debate. Issues such as investments, legislative frameworks, R&D needs, knowledge

management, education and public opinion should be looked at in-depth. Photos: European Parliament Archive

the role of nuclear in the future: Nuclear decline in spite of industry

However, the Forum should not be a talk-shop. ENEF must be about action-driven deliverables which help to build a road-map for the future of

tempts to position nuclear power as the solution to climate change are bal warming through expansion of nuclear energy and the consequential nuclear risks. Promoting it as a sustainable energy source, as the nuclear

lobby in Brussels and elsewhere is trying to do, is misleading. Any technology that can produce devastating consequences such as those in 1986 from

the Chernobyl disaster can never be sustainable. The permanent risk of a

core meltdown is a strong argument against the use of nuclear power. The lifetime extension of nuclear power plants heightens the risk of a major

accident considerably. Other questions are still unanswered. Are we going to ﬁnd a solution to disposing nuclear waste safely for thousands or even millions of years? Every country using nuclear power could build a nuclear bomb if it decided to do so. These dangers are no less terrifying given the challenges of climate change.

We must ignore the nuclear smokescreen and focus on proven, clean

nuclear energy.

technologies in response to the climate crisis we are facing. Only a strategy

ship in supporting the initiatives of industry is the ﬁeld of nuclear waste

gy production ﬁx will help ﬁght against climate change. Conservation and

One area where there has to be greater recognition and political leader-

management. Technical solutions to long-term safe storage of radioactive

waste exist. Recognition of these solutions and backing for their imple-

which makes energy companies, ministers and citizens abandon the enerefﬁciency must become priorities in energy supply and use worldwide.

mentation should be prioritised by decision-makers across Europe and at EU level.

— 45 —

TOPICS EuropeanAgenda

People: Winner and Loser Who came out on top and who was a flop in recent months

angela merkel

Since the handing over of the German Presidency of the European Union, Angela Merkel has had more than a fair number of successes. In June, the

same month that Germany handed off a solid EU Presidency to Portugal, Merkel became the second woman after Thatcher ever to chair a G8 sum-

mit. In August, Forbes magazine named her the most powerful woman in the world. With the upcoming signing of the Lisbon treaty on December

13th, she will also have accomplished much in terms of modernizing and updating the EU’s practices in how it approaches the future. With new

and higher standards for transparency, citizen participation, and regulations, the goals of the Treaty aim for a far more streamlined European

governing body.Together with Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has also addressed the need to introduce more strict ﬁnan-

cial regulation and oversight in the face of recent worldwide stock-slide scares. Last but not least, Merkel also strengthened her position in Eu-

rope with the successful reduction of Germany’s deﬁcit, which in 2007 stays well below the Maastricht criteria for the ﬁrst time in 5 years.

yves leterme More than ﬁve months after its general election in June, Belgium remains in quiet turmoil, without a government, leaving the previous incumbents

to act as caretakers. Yves Leterme, a member of the Flemish Christian Democrat party (CD&V) and the Flemish parliamentary majority, has

so far failed to fulﬁll the task that he was appointed to as “Formateur” after winning the elections. The initial debate was about the region of

Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde, divided between monolingual Flanders and bilingual Brussels, with the new Flemish majority wishing to consolidate

the region, abolishing the right of the 150,000 French speakers there to

Photos: www.marco-urban.de; www.sxc.hu

vote for Francophone parties. The discussion has not been helped by de-

batable remarks by Leterme, which some Francophone Belgians found

insulting. On August 23rd the development culminated when Leterme resigned, as negotiations had clearly failed - only to be reinstated a month

later. Leterme reputation suffered as well when he cited the wrong rea-

son for celebrating the Belgian National day on July (he took it to be the day when the constitution was proclaimed, while it in fact commemo-

rates the inauguration of the ﬁrst Belgian king Leopold I) and started to

sing the French Marseillaise rather than the Belgian Brabançonne when asked to sing the Belgian anthem. For Belgium’s sake, hopefully his second round as ‘Formateur’ will prove more successful.

— 47 —

TOPICS EuropeanAgenda

Personnel Changes Institutions De Kerchove new EU CounterTerrorism Coordinator

TICKER

Katerina Batzeli, Chairwoman, MEP – Committee

on Culture and Education +++ Elmar Brok, Member of IGC, European Parliament +++ Giovanni Curtopassi, Head of Information

and Communication, EAR +++ Enrique

Gilles de Kerchove

Baron Crespo, Member of IGC, European

EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator

Parliament +++ Andrew Duff Member of IGC,

Council of the EU

European Parliament +++ Wolfgang Ischinger,

Nationality: BE

Start: 19/09/2007

Gilles de Kerchove coordinates the work of the Council of the EU in the

ﬁeld of counter-terrorism, maintains an overview of the tools at the EU’s disposal, monitors the

implementation of the EU counter-terrorism strategy, and ensures that the EU plays an ac¬tive role in the ﬁght against terrorism. Mr de Kerchove was Director at the Council Secre¬tariat in

charge of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters and in this capacity worked closely with Mr Gijs de Vries, the former EU counter-terrorism coordinator.

Ambassador – EU High Representative +++

Martin Kamp, Secretary General, European People’s Party +++ John Prescott, Leader UK Delegation Parliament Assembly of the

Council of Europe, Council of Europe +++ Dario

Scannapieco, VP, European Investment Bank +++ Eva Srejber, VP, European Investment

Bank +++ Charis Xirouchakis, Head of Visits, European Economic and Social Committee

Giovanna Corda

Anni Podimata

31/08/2007

01/10/2007

PSE, Belgium

PSE, Greece

Roselyne Lefrançois

Lily Jacobs

Margaritis Schinas

04/07/2007

04/09/2007

01/10/2007

PSE, France

PSE, Netherlands

EPP-ED, Greece

Catherine Neris

Vicente Miguel Garcés Ramón

Armando França

04/07/2007

27/09/2007

15/10/2007

PSE, France

PSE, Spain

PSE, Portugal

Pierre Pribetich

Emmanouil Angelakas

Cornelis Visser

04/07/2007

01/10/2007

17/10/2007

PSE, France

EPP-ED, Greece

EPP-ED, Netherlands

Francesco Ferrari

Costas Botopoulos

Madeleine Jouye De Grandmaison

05/07/2007

01/10/2007

09/11/2007

ALDE, Italy

PSE, Greece

GUE/NGL, France

Ewa Tomaszewska

Maria Eleni Koppa

Georgios Georgiou

30/08/2007

01/10/2007

UEN, Poland

— 48 —

PSE, Greece

Ind/Dem, Greece

Photos: archive; European Parliament

New MEPs

TOPICS EuropeanAgenda Martyn Grifﬁths

Associations Griffiths joins CEPI

Lacny elected President of IRU Janusz Lacny President

Martyn Grifﬁths

IRU

Communications &

Nationality: PL

Public Affairs Director Nationality: UK

Start: 01/01/2008 Janusz Lacny, who was previously IRU Vice President, President of the IRU’s Goods Transport Council, and Secretary General of the IRU’s Polish Member Association ZMPD has now been elected

Martyn Grifﬁths is the new Head of Communications and Public Affairs, Confederation European

Paper Industries (CEPI). He manages the devel-

opment and implementation of global communication strategies working in close collabora-

tions with the CEPI team. Prior to joining CEPI,

President of the International Road Transport Union by the IRU General Assembly. Mr Lacny enjoys

a distinguished career in road transport, which started in 1991 when he became an international haulier, establishing his own transport company “JMJ-TRANS”.

TICKER

Silvan Agius, Policy Ofﬁcer, European Region of the International Lesbian and Gay

Association (ILGA) +++ Gianluca Antonelli, Social Affairs Manager, Confederation

Mr.Grifﬁths worked for the European Council of

European Paper Industries (CEPI) +++ Sabine Arras, Head of Communication, European

Vinyl Manufacturers in Brussels as Communica-

Bioplastics +++ Constantino Baldissara, Vice-President, European Car-Transport

tions & External Affairs Manager.

Sabine Arras

Group (ECG) +++ Götz Brandau, Legal Affairs Ofﬁcer, Federation of European Direct

and Interactive Marketing (FEDMA) +++ Andrew Cecil, President, European Digital

Media Association (EDIMA) +++ Dr.Panos E. Cavoulacos, President, European Petroleum Industry

New Director General at CIAA Mella Frewen

Director-General CIAA

Nationality: IE

Association (EUROPIA) +++ Paresh Chandra, Chief Information Ofﬁcer, International Road Transport

Union (IRU) +++ Michele Ciavarini Azzi, Chairman, Union of European Federalists (UEF-BE) +++ Marcel Daniëls, Vice President, TEVA Europe +++ Hendrick Jan de Jong, Chairman, European Pharmacopoeia (EDQM) +++ Susanna di Feliciantonio, Head of EU Public Affairs, Institute of Chartered Accountants

in England and Wales (ICAEW) +++ Niall Doheny, International Communications Manager, European

Railway Industries UNIFE +++ Francois-Xavier Dubois, Managing Director, Excellence for Non Proﬁt (

AFA) +++ Anne–Sophie Duchêne, Communications Manager, European Postal Operators Association (POSTEUROP) +++ José Fernando Figueiredo, President, European Mutual Guarantee Association

(AECM) +++ Pascal Garel, Chief Executive, European Hospital and Healthcare Federation (HOPE) +++

Florence Gras, General Delegate, European Association of Pari Mutuel Gaming Operators (EPMA) +++ Isabelle Gueury, Director, Association of European Chambers of Comerce and Industry (Eurochambers)

Mella Frewen is the new Director General at

CIAA, the Confederation of the Food and Drink

+++ Jérôme Guyot, Communications Ofﬁcer, Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (EIM) +++

Matt Hardman, Campaigns Manager, the Forum for Private Business (FPB) +++ Emmanuelle Hardy, Communications Manager, European Centre of Enterprises with Public Participation

of General Economic Interest (CEEP) +++ Folker Hellemund, Head, EU-Ofﬁce of

Industries of the EU. She took over from Daniela

German Sports +++ Susanne Keitel, Director, European Directorate for the Quality

Israelachwili. Ms Frewen has worked previously as the Director for Government affairs – Europe

Photos: archive

& Africa for Monsanto. Prior to her engagements

of Medicines (EDQM) +++ Elisabeta Kitanovic, Executive Secretary, Brussels Ofﬁce of

the Church and Society Commission of the Conference of European Churches (CEC)

with Monsanto she was International Relations

Martin Todd

producer. Ms Frewen holds a Bachelor and Mas-

Paloma Castro Martinez, Secretary for for EDiMA, European Digital Media Association +++ Antonio

+++ Emma Lawson, Chairwoman, Federation of European Direct and Interactive

Director for Cerestar, Europe`s biggest starch

Marketing (FEDMA) +++ Knuth Lorenzen, President, Food Processing Machinery Europe (FPME) +++

ter of Science degrees from the National Univer-

Montero, President, European Chemical Transportation Association (ECTA) +++ Graham Neale,

sity of Ireland.

President, Union of European Beverages Associations (UNESDA)

— 49 —

TOPICS EuropeanAgenda

National and Regional Representations Brandenburg NATO Permanent Representative of Germany

New Estonian Representative Raul Mälk

Ulrich Brandenburg

Permanent Representa-

Permanent Representative of Germany

tive Estonian Respre-

NATO

sentative to EU

Nationality: German

Nationality:EE

Start: 23/08/2007

Start: 17/08/2007

Ambassador Ulrich Brandenburg is Germany’s new Permanent Representative to NATO. Ambas-

Ambassador Raul Mälk joined the Estonian Foreign

previously served as Head of Defence and Security Policy and Head, Partnership and Cooperation

senior positions in the Estonian Ministry of Foreign

sador Brandenburg was Deputy Political Director in the Federal Foreign Ministry in Berlin. He has Section, Political Affairs Di¬vision at NATO.

TICKER

Tomasz Borczuch, EU Affairs

Specialist, Kujawsko-Pomorskie

EU Office +++ Ricklef Beutin,

Service in 1992. Since then he has served in various Affairs and led a number of Estonian delegations in international negotiation processes.

Media and Think Tanks

Deputy Spokesperson, German Permanent

Representation

to the EU +++ Mr. Bettzuege German Bilateral Ambassador

to Belgium +++ Kim Darroch, UK

Löw new Head of ORF Brussels

Permanent Representative to the Juri Luik

EU, UK Permanent Rep. to the EU

Raimund Löw

Jonas Bylund

Re p re s e n t a t i ve ,

ORF

ERRIN

+++ Jean De Ruyt, Permanent

Head of Brussels Ofﬁce

Belgian

Björne Hegefeldt, Information

Klarenbeek, Counsellor for

Löw is the new Head of the Brussels ofﬁce of the

Bylund is the new Director of ERRIN, the Euro-

Representation+++ Jüri Luik,

eign correspondent in Moscow. From 1991 to 1997

Mr Bylund succedds Charlotte Andersdotter. Mr

RELEX,

Dutch

Permanent

Permanent Representative, Estonian Didier Seeuws

Nationality: SE

Start:01/08/2007

and Communication Officer, Mid Sweden Ofﬁce +++ Joost

Director

Nationality: AT

Permanent Representative +++

Bartlomiej Ostrowski

Bylund new Director of ERRIN

Permanent

Representative to NATO +++

Bartlomeiej Ostrowski, Head

of Office, Lower Silesia Regional Office +++

Isabel Poli, Project Manager, West Sweden +++

ORF From 1989 to 1991 he worked as the ORF´s forhe was a correspondent in the USA, leading the of-

ﬁce in Washington during his last two years there. Since then, he has been active as resporter in the

pean Regions Research and Innovation Network. Bylund was previously Manager, Technical Experst at Ernst & Young.

EU, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, before becoming the Head of ORF Brussels.

Alejandro Rodriguez-Ramos, European Business

TICKER

Seeuws, Deputy Permanent Representative,

Welle +++ Ben Butters, Programme Director, Lisbon Council Entrepreneurs Programme +++ Katharina

Advisor, East of England Brussels Ofﬁce +++ Didier European Union

— 50 —

Jill Grinda, Director of Worldwide Distribution, Euronews +++ Catherine Martens, News Producer, Deutsche Müller, Marketing Manager, Centre for European Policy Studies.

Photos: archive

Jean Deruyt

TOPICS EuropeanAgenda

Companies Schönfelder Head of Siemens’ Government Affairs

Zangrandi leads Enel’s EU Office Roberto Zangrandi

Wilhelm Schönfelder

Head of European Affairs

Head of Government Affairs

ENEL EU Ofﬁce

SIEMENS

Nationality: IT

Nationality: DE

Start: 01/09/2007

Start: 01/09/2007 Wilhelm Schönfelder, who before his recent retirement was Berlin’s ambassador to the European

Roberto Zangrandi is the Head of European Af-

Brussels. Mr Schönfelder, who has also held posts in Washington, Paris and Afghanistan amongst

ously Head of Corporate Social Responsibility

Union (1999- 30 June 2007, the end of Geramny’s EU Presidency), is Siemens Chief Lobbyist in others, took up his duties at the beginning of September.

fairs of Enel in Brussels since September. Previat the Italian electricity com¬pany in Rome, he

started his career as ﬁnancial journalist with

leading Italian magazines. Successively he was

TICKER

Salla Ahonen, Senior Manager, Nokia +++ Sebastian Gerlach, Legal and Corporate Affairs Ofﬁcer,

Microsoft +++ Philippe Ghyssels, Health Policy Manager, Merck Serono Geneva +++ Reginald Otten, Consultant, Fleishman-Hillard +++

Head of International Media Relations and then Head of the Frankfurt Ofﬁce with Fiat, the automotive group of Italy.

Consultancies TICKER

Sylvie Biebricher, Business Director, Grayling Brussels

+++ Carla Ciminera, Head of ICT Devision, Blueprint

+++ Catherine Gilliard, EU Public Affairs Consultant,

Freshﬁelds Bruckhaus Deringer +++ Emmanul Goedseels, Emmanuel Goedseels

Executive Vice Chairman, Interel +++ Eva-Maria Hartlieb, PR-Assistant, IKP Communications +++ Andrée Jallon,

Senior Advisor, Athenora Consulting +++ Erika Janson, Political Researcher, Quintus Public Affair’s Brussels +++ Irina Michalowitz, EU Representative for Telecommunications, Telekom Austria Group +++ Karen van Bergen, SVP, Regional Director, Fleishman-Hillard

Roderic Abbot Associate Gplus

Nationality: UK

Start: 04/07/2007

International +++ Van Hulton, Managing Director, Burson-

Roderick Abbot joined Gplus, the EU communications ﬁrm, as an As-

RSCG Brussels +++ Baudoin Velge, Managing Director,

an illustrious career as a high-ranking ofﬁcial, namely also as Deputy

Masteller +++ Grégoire Poisson, Senior Consultant, EURO Karen van Bergen

Abbot new Associate at Gplus

INTEREL

sociate. A former Deputy Director-General at the WTO, Mr. Abbot has

Director-General with the European Commissions DG Trade. During his 30-year stint with the European Commission, Mr.Abbott played an

Photos: archive

active part in both the Tokyo and Uruguay Rounds of trade negotiations and served as the EU Ambassador in Geneva.

— 51 —

INTERNATIONAL FRAGRANCE ASSOCIATION

PROMOTING FRAGRANCE SAFETY AND ENJOYMENT WORLDWIDE OUR RAISON D’ETRE • Deliver credible science and promulgate safety standards globally • Promote the beneﬁts of fragrances and their role in enhancing the quality of life

For more information on the International Fragrance Association (IFRA), visit www.ifraorg.org

PEOPLE EuropeanAgenda

Gala Brussels’ Event Highlights Second half 2008

Hanns-Seidel-Foundation

Photos: Hanns-Seidel-Foundation; Curtesy Friends of Europe

25 years in Brussels

Friends of Europe

President’s Dinner

LOCATION: REPRESENTATION OF THE FREE STATE OF BAVARIA TO THE EU

LOCATION: BRUSSELS AIRPORT, SKY HALL

OCTOBER 2, 2007

OCTOBER 4, 2007

— 53 —

PEOPLE EuropeanAgenda

Hanns-Seidel-Foundation

25 years in Brussels

October 2, 2007 - Representation of the Free State of Bavaria to the EU On October 2 the Liasion ofﬁce of the Hanns-

Seidel-Foundation in Brussels celebrated its

25th anniversary. Foundation Chairman Hans Zehetmair and Jean Claude Juncker, the Prime

Minister of Luxembourg, addressed more than 500 guests, including Ambassadors, Members of the European Parliament and high ranking representatives from the EU Institutions.

Dr. Rudolf Strohmeier and MEP Ingo Friedrich

Edmund Duckwitz, Hans Zehetmair, Heidrun Piwernetz, Jean-Claude Juncker, Ursula Männle, Ingo Friedrich

Dr. h.c. mult. Hans Zehetmair welcomes the Russian Ambassador Vladimir Chizhov

MEP Michael Gahler, Prince Nikolaus von Lichtenstein, Franz-Hermann Brüner

Guests enjoying the hospitality of the Bavarian representation to the EU

— 54 —

Photos: Hanns-Seidel-Foundation

Elmar Brok, Ambassador Dr Edmund Duckwitz

PEOPLE EuropeanAgenda

Friends of Europe

President’s Dinner October 4, 2007 - Brussels Airport, Sky Hall Over 650 guests from the topmost reaches of politics, business, civil society and the media throughout Europe gathered to celebrate the 75th birthday of Friends of Europe President

Viscount Etienne Davignon. They came to pay

tribute to a man who, during the 50 years since the Treaty of Rome, has played a prominent role in advancing the European project.

Pat Cox (right) moderated the evening

Prince Laurent of Belgium talking to guests.

Étienne Davignon discusses withNeelie Kroes.

Photos: Curtesy Friends of Europe

Friends of Europe President Viscount Étienne Davignon, Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes

Prince Hassan of Jordan, Hans-Gert Pöttering, Antoinette Spaak, Prince Laurent. Sitting: Étienne Davignon, Neelie Kroes.

Prince Laurent talking to World Trade Organization Secretary-General Pascal Lamy.

Former Commission President Jacques Santer

— 55 —

PEOPLE EuropeanAgenda

The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA)

Commercial Vehicle Event November 22, 2007- Autoworld Cinquantenaire The 4th ACEA commercial vehicle event

brought together industry and trade experts, politicians and EU legislators to discuss major changes within the European commercial ve-

hicles (CV) market caused by globalisation and climate change.

Speaker: David O‘Sullivan, Director General DG Trade

Speaker: Aad Goudriaan, Chairman ACEA CV Board & President DAF Trucks

Panel: Ivan Hodac, Secretary General ACEA + Fotis Karamitsos, DG Transport + Arild Iversen, CEO Wallenius Wilhelmsen + Jorma Halonen, Executive Vice President AB Volvo

The European Telecommunications Network Operators‘ Association (ETNO)

Finding the right balance November 22, 2007 – The Hilton Hotel, Brussels More than 300 experts from the e-communications industry, EU institutions, economists and

member states discussed future challenges of the telecoms sector and held a ﬁrst debate on

EU telecoms rules, on the occasion of ETNO’s 5th Annual Conference.

Michael Bartholomew, ETNO Director

— 56 —

Didier Bellens, CEO Belgacom

Bojan Dremelj, CEO, Telekom Slovenjie Debate on Future Policy Vision from left to right: Fabio Colasanti, Director General DG Information Society and Media; Peter O’Donnell, debate moderator; Ian Hargreaves, OFCOM; Wolfgang Kopf, Deutsche Telekom; Professor Leonard Waverman, London Business School Photos: Photos: ACEA (4); ETNO

the Commission proposals for the review of the

t i on . V i s

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S u c ce s s.

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TOPICS EuropeanAgenda

Eurocrats’ Babble “GALLIA est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Bel-

the Bruxellois/Brusseleirs, and it seems that they are pretty much fed

appellantur.“ Thus wrote Julius Caesar in De Bello Gallico I. 2,000

sons, pro and con, for the Belgium nation-state to stay together or to

years onwards, Belgium is inhabited by the Flames, the Walloons, and

7 Reasons

Why Belgium should stay together

Why Belgium should split up

De Bello Gallico was written around 50 BC, stating in

fact the following: Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Bel-

gae, “of all these the Belgians are the strongest”. Can

Belgium is not only the host of the European Union, it is its cradle. It

was only then when Celtic, early Gaul and Germanic tribes mingled

on these muddy lowlands to live out the European dream long before Schumann, Spaak, and Spinelli.

Speaking of the so-called “great” Europeans – who are the ones running the real day-to-day European business? Belgians! Why? Because

they TRULY speak more than one language, instead of just having spent one “study year abroad” like everyone else

The French are famous for baguette and acting snooty to almost

everyone. The Dutch are famous for driving caravans and smoking

pot. The Germans are famous for… you know what. YOU, Belgians, on the other hand are famous for brewing the best beer, making the most deli-

cious chocolates and producing the funniest cartoons in the world – do you really want to split that up?

“Wallonian beer” just sounds silly. So does “Flemish

6 7

On the way from check-in to the gate at the Brussels airport, you

beer” So does „Belgo-Germanic beer“. Only „Brussels D.C. Brew“ sounds nice

would pass three national borders

The fact of the matter is that they call them “French fries” or “freedom fries”, but deﬁnitely not “Flemish fries” or “Walloon fries”. Get over it.

— 58 —

split up – from a Eurocrats’ perspective:

7 Reasons

you really divide a force that withstood Julius?

up with their respective co-habitants. European Agenda gives 7 rea-

Less confusion when traveling through Brussels: Double-language street

names like “Rue du Moulin / Molenstraat”, “Rue de la Charité / Liefdadig-

heidstraat, “Quai du Bois à Brûler / Brandhoutkaai” would cease to exist

Brussels would be renamed “Brussels D.C.” and fall under the Commissions’ jurisdiction. The newly created DG D.C. would be headed

by a Croat and a Turk; the newly created police force would speak World English with a strong Euro-accent

Population ﬁgures would rise considerably in Brussels D.C. due to the extremely favorable tax rates. VAT, for instances, would be aban-

doned altogether

The national landscape of Europe would

be enriched by two new heraldic animals:

A Flemish black lion saying “No more mooch-

ing” and a Wallonian red rooster sign a sign reading “Stupid Flanders!”

Following these articulate examples, all European states disinte-

grate into smaller region states, until in 12 years, Eurocitzens hold

their breath to the Euro cup ﬁnal Päijät-Häme vs. Styria

No more “excusez-moi” or “het spijt me”, just good old “sorry, com-

A newly reformed service culture will emerge – the plumber will

ing through” when ﬁghting your way out of the Metro on a Monday

morning

arrive on exactly the time he stated, construction works will be

conducted in an efﬁcient manner and stop causing nerve-wracking con-

gestions during peak time. There will be lots of parking space in central Brussels D.C. and actually, there will be more sun-hours per year than in Malibu

Photos: www.sxc.hu

gae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli