The 2009 "Entretiens Economiques Européens" (European Economic Discussions) talked about the european capitalism transformation with two meetings in Brussels :
 June 23: "The climate package: a way out of crisis?"
 December 10 and 11: "Policies and firms facing the social challenge caused by the crisis - financing long term investments for a new sustainable development."

Tuesday 23rd June 2009

This conference took place during the Green Week of the European Commission.

	In partnership with

The climate package: a way out of crisis ?

 9a.m.-11a.m. - Introductory round table : "The climate and energy package: beginnings, contents, advantages and limits in the global economic crisis"
 11.30a.m. - 1p.m. - Round Table n°1 : "The challenge of climate change in the corporate sector and in national stimulus packages as a means of fighting the recession?"
 2.30-3.30 - Hearing of Philippe Maystadt, President of the European Investment Bank
 4.p.m.-5.30p.m. - Round table n°2 : "The energy and climate change package, the basis for a new European stimulus package more effective, more equitable, and better shared"
 5.30p.m. - Provisory conclusions
 7.30p.m. - Dinner-débate : "European Climate package and International post-Kyoto negotiations: getting a global agreement in Copenhagen with responses to the challenges of climate change based on solidarity"

 Minutes of the EEE in an illustrated leaflet, and the CV of the speakers.

The discussions have been introduced by the President of the EESC, Mr. Mario Sepi

9a.m.-11a.m. : INTRODUCTORY ROUND TABLE

”The climate change and energy package : beginnings, contents, advantages and limits in the global economic crisis”

Chaired by: André Ferron, Researcher at Confrontations Europe

With:
 Jean-Pierre Bompard, Delegate for Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development, CFDT Trade Union
 Alex Bowen, London School of Economics, Principal Research Fellow at the Grantham Institute, former Senior Adviser to the Bank of England and to the Stern Review
 Michel Cruciani, Senior Adviser, University of Paris-Dauphine – CGEMP
 Philippe Huet, Senior Executive Vice President of Electricité De France, EDF
 Damien Meadows, Deputy Head of Unit Market based instruments including Greenhouse gas emissions trading, European Commission’s DG Environment

André Ferron	Jean-Pierre Bompard	Alex Bowen
	Slides préparés par JP Bompard (non montrés)	Slides A. Bowen

Michel Cruciani	Philippe Huet	Damien Meadows
		Slides D. Meadows

The world is facing a twofold crisis:
  an economic and social crisis: by June, when the Entretiens économiques européens are being held, we may already be facing a dramatic worsening of the situation. At the very least, we do not know what state the global economy will be in by 2013. We shall consider three possible scenarios – Will we be in a depression? After several years of chaos, will growth have dropped almost to zero? Or will we be enjoying a long-standing upturn?
  a climate crisis: the effects of global warming resulting from our carbon emissions into the atmosphere are becoming more marked. The scenarios provided by the IPCC have provided the basis for new political action aimed at stemming the impact of global warming, particularly in Europe. We will remind the main effects expected from the forecast climate crisis, depending of both possible changes in the global warming scenarios and economic crisis evolution.

Faced with the casualization of the economic and social situation, are our commitments to sustainable development, low-carbon energies, and a green economy still front page news, or are they part of a determination that will not survive stormier times? Should we wait for the crisis to pass? Or, on the contrary, do these commitments provide levers for a new growth model implementation that would enable us to fight recession, manage the transitional period and prepare for the future?

The European energy and climate change package The beginnings and contents of the energy-climate package unanimously accepted in December 2008 by the members of the European Council will be reminded.

An outline of the stages in the legislation will provide an opportunity to appreciate the efforts made to bring 27 countries to such a joint commitment. A detailed look at the contents of the package will reveal the full value of the commitments made by the EU, and their implications.

The conditions laid down in the energy-climate package will apply from 2013 onwards and they fix a ceiling for 2020 and beyond. They are a restrictive Community commitment designed mainly to take over, within Europe, from the conditions set out in the Kyoto Protocol, which comes to an end in 2012. The successor of this United Nations protocol will be the subject of discussion in December 2009 at the United Nations conference on climate change, due to be held in Copenhagen.

However, given the economic and social crisis affecting Europe and the rest of the world, should we not start to implement from now some measures providing a strong framework to meet package commitments, and incite the economic agents to advance their investments to do so? What measures in the climate package should already be promoted to lessen the effects of the crisis on businesses and countries and to create future prospects, restore hope and confidence, and mobilise stakeholders?

11.30 a.m. – 1 p.m.: ROUND TABLE 1

”The challenge of climate change in the corporate sector and in national stimulus packages as a means of fighting the recession ?”

How do companies integrate this factor into their strategies for innovation, industrial and commercial development, staff training and provisional jobs management? Do they, in fact, integrate it?

Representatives or members of three industrial sectors will describe their very different situations and their options:
  The energy/environment service industries sector includes companies with the best-placed economic and industrial structures and prospects to fight the recession, supply solutions for other sectors of business and develop innovations that will assist in achieving a sustainable solution to the crisis.
  The automobile sector’s structure has subjected it to overproduction and it is suffering badly in the current crisis. In this sector, the needs to restructure the industrial tools and human resources and achieve innovation by working jointly with energy suppliers represent major issues. This is a sector emblematic of both coordination challenges of stimulus packages at European level and strategic choices to be done for a change in our growth model.
  The Iron & Steel sector is in serious difficulty. It is one of the sectors which, because of high energy requirements and dependence on the automobile and building industries, is faced with a number of thorny structural problems that have to be solved if it is to withstand the economic crisis and develop a growth model compatible with the control of global warming.

The European States are facing a worsening situation. Their deficits and debts are increasing and their workers are joining the queues of unemployed, in some cases by waves of hundreds of thousands. To try to cope with this, the States are putting tens of billions of euros into stimulus packages that are supposed to support employment and market demand. However, in these emergency plans, it is difficult to see which measures actually lay the foundations of a return to sustainable growth. In that objective, what place has been given in national stimulus packages to measures that might encourage, prepare and assist in the achievement of the objectives set out in the energy and climate change package?

In particular, we shall look at the case of:
  Poland, where the public deficit is expected to remain within the European mean in 2009 but where the stimulus package does not appear to contain anything linked to the energy/climate package, despite its very high level of dependence on coal for its energy supply.
  Spain, which is one of Europe’s leaders in the field of renewable energies but where employment has been very severely affected, especially in the construction, automobile and service industries, with more than one million additional people losing their jobs over the past year, almost 200,000 of them in January 2009 alone. As additional difficulty, Spain’s public deficit will be substantial this year

Chaired by : Nicolas Théry, Senior Adviser to the Director General Environment at the European Commission

With :
 Bruno Bensasson, Vice President, Economic, prices and market affairs, GDF SUEZ
 Carlos Gasco, Head of Prospective Regulation, IBERDROLA RENOVABLES
 Jaroslaw Grzesik, Deputy Head of the Energy Division within the Solidarnosc trade union
 Graham Smith, Senior Vice-President of Toyota Motor Europe
 Roland Verstappen, Vice President of ArcelorMittal

Nicolas Théry	Bruno Bensasson	Carlos Gasco T.
	Slides B. Bensasson

Jaroslaw Grzesik	Graham Smith	Roland Verstappen
	Slides G. Smith

2.30 p.m. – 3.30 p.m. : HEARING

Philippe Maystadt, President of the European Investment Bank

In the current financial and economic crisis, the role of the EIB as development and recovery bank grows stronger. But should not the bank action plan be built on industrial policy clearly defined by public authorities? Do the Bank need for new terms of office? How to articulate them effectively with those given to the EBRD? How could it help for new industrial projects that would be in accordance with our recent commitments against global warming? We will hear and discuss with the President of the EIB about these questions.

Slides P. Maystadt

4. p.m. – 5.30 p.m.: ROUND TABLE 2

”The energy and climate change package, the basis for a new European stimulus package more effective, more equitable, and better shared”

The national stimulus packages seem inadequate and divisive. Because they are not coordinated enough, they could increase the tensions between States and populations within the European Union. Besides, they do not promote the indispensable emergence of a real public and private coresponsibility, that has to take root in the entire society to forge individual and collective behaviours facing up to the challenges.

With the climate package, the Europeans have succeeded in sharing common objectives. It is a broad, visible and long-lasting base for the action at every level within the Union. How can we take advantage of this European framework for a structural transformation of our production and consumption patterns to build an ad hoc basis for Community action?

We shall tackle this topic by looking briefly at the conditions of success for the accelerated introduction of this European stimulus package, then we shall seek to illustrate our positions through the study of a particular case:
  Invest from now to educate the actors, increase research and innovation means, adapt and develop new financing tools... to prepare the implementation of the energy-climate package measures: what objectives? What resources are available to do so? What incentives are there? What role for companies, territories, citizens?
  The consolidation of the energy/climate package within an effective and equitable Community stimulus package, with shared resources and long-term funding: the case of the building industry. The building industry is a prime example for several reasons: severely affected by the crisis, it has nevertheless one of the highest potentials for the adaptation and/or retraining of its work force, for economic recovery, and for the integration of the rules of sustainable development and innovative solutions to achieve energy efficiency and the use of renewable energies. This would make a significant, active contribution to the achievement of the energy-climate package objectives. Nevertheless, this sector doesn’t receive any action plan at Community level – which objectives are still to be specified –. Yet this is the best way to release the investment capacity of both owners and builders. How to mobilize private funds, saving in particular? What public levers for investment? What role for building sector companies and for local authorities?

Chaired by : Rolf Linkohr, President of the Centre for European Energy Strategy

With :
 Joachim Bitterlich, Executive Vice-President of Véolia Environnement
 Catherine Cesarsky, High-Commissioner of the French Atomic Energy Commission , CEA
 Dirk Cordeel, President of the European Construction Industry Federation, FIEC
 Vitor Gaspar, Head of Bureau of European policy advisers, BEPA, European Commission
 Pierre Jonckheer, Member of the European Parliament, Belgium, President of the Observatoire social européen

Rolf Linkohr	Joachim Bitterlich	Catherine Cesarsky
		Slides C. Cesarsky

Dirk Cordeel

Pierre Dechamps

Pierre Jonckheer

5.30 p.m.: PROVISORY CONCLUSIONS

Claude Fischer, Chairwoman of Confrontations Europe

Claude Fischer

Conclusions

Conclusions in French

7p.m.: DINNER-DEBATE TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

”European Climate package and International post-Kyoto negotiations : getting a global agreement in Copenhagen with responses to the challenges of climate change based on solidarity”

The debate dealt with the advantages and possible weaknesses of the climate change and energy package in international negotiations on the eve of the Copenhagen meeting.

It assessed:
  the capacity of the climate package and its solidarity mechanisms to convince emerging countries to lead to a new international agreement on climate,
  The influence of the package within the negotiations with the United States, for achieving the signature of a balanced agreement that faces up to the challenges.

The historic responsibility with regard to global warming of developed countries - and the more recent one of high growth developing countries -, call for strong actions of solidarity with emerging countries. Any attempt to reach global agreement without powerful mechanisms for the transfer of funding and technology to developing countries could appear as unfair ; and consequently compromise the achievement of an agreement able to maintaining the mean rise in atmospheric temperature below 2°C across the globe.

The financial requirements of emerging countries have been estimated at between 100 and 150 billion Euros per annum to ensure a changeover to a low-carbon industrial sector. How can this be funded? Incentives for investment in emerging countries are included in the energy/climate package but are they sufficient to meet the needs? What will the impact of the current crisis be on the efficiency of the carbon market and the financial resources expected from it? Moreover, what kind of mechanism could be found to incite to the reinvestment of earnings from carbon exchanges in renewable energies, adaptation to climate changes or structural grants for emerging countries? Is this not an opportunity for framework agreements on technology transfers against the application of equitable property rights?

Moreover, the United-States are back at the negotiating table. Barack Obama has said he intends to commit his country to responsible climate management. Let us not be mistaken, though – in a time of economic crisis, the top priority for the American Administration is to restart the national economy. The rules that the USA will attempt to promote on a global level will probably not be the ones put forward by Europe. Will the frameworks defined by the European energy/climate package be sufficiently strong, adaptable and competitive to achieve a balanced agreement that is not harmful to any region in the world and capable of meeting the challenges facing us today? In these negotiations, how can we speak with a single European voice to turn the climate agreement into part of the EU’s external economic policy?

These coming negotiations between Europe and the rest of the world in a background of international crisis could force the energy/climate package to be adapted. Could such changes not help for coordinating macro-economic policies on a global scale and ensuring a sustainable and equitable growth?

Chaired by : Christian Egenhofer, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for European Policy Studies

With :
 Louis Bono, Counsellor for Energy, Environment, Science & Technology, Mission of the United States of America to the EU
 Jos Delbeke, Deputy Director-General to the European Commission’s DG Environment
 Wang Yi, Deputy Director General of the Institute for Policy and Management of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Head scientist of the China sustainable development strategy study group.

Christian Egenhofer

Louis Bono

Jos Delbeke

Wang Yi

Minutes of the EEE on Climate

The minutes of the conference in a leaflet, and the CV of the speakers.

Minutes EEE Climate June09

CV Speakers EEE Climate Package

Director of publication: Claude Fischer
Photos: Han Ye Liang
Page setting and illustration: Marie-Ange Schilling

 Pour plus d’informations en Français