Ravnatelj Agencije kao predstavnik FEDARENE u izaslanstvu europskih mreža i udruženja

U povodu Europskog energetskog tjedna koji je upravo u tijeku u Bruxellesu, održan je radni sastanak s predstavnika europskih mreža i udruženja u području održivog korištenja energije s Güntherom Oettingerom, Europskim povjerenikom za energiju. U izaslanstvu su sudjelovali:
– Eckart Wurzner, gradonačelnik Heidelberga, predsjednik Energy Cities,
– Julije Domac, predstavnik FEDARENE,
– Bo Frank, gradonačelnik Växjö, član Upravnog odbora Energy Cities,
– Olga Veidina, zamjenica gradonačelnika Rige, članica Upravnog odbora Energy Cities,
– Gérard Magnin, izvršni direktor Energy Cities,
– Kristina Dely, voditeljica ureda Covenant of Mayors,
– Carola Gunnarsson, predsjednica Švedskog udruženja gradova i regija,
– Ulrike Janssen, izvršna direktorica Climate Alliance,
– Anna-Kaisa Ikonen, gradonačelnica Tampere, Eurocities.

Tijekom sastanka, predstavnici europskih mreža i udruženja iznijeli su svoje pogledi i prijedlog vezane za europsku politiku i prioritete u području održivog korištenja energije, a ovdje donosimo govor ravnatelja Agencije u cijelosti:

Dear Commissioner for Energy Mr Oettinger,

It is a privilege and a great honour to address you on behalf of FEDARENE and North-west Croatia Regional Energy Agency.

We speak today about sustainable energy, a challenge common for all European nations – and I am proud that in less than a week my country Croatia will be a part of our big European family. Today we also speak about cities and regions. I see regions as the building blocks of a grassroots Europe, co-operating with one another across national boundaries, implementing joint projects and identifying common solutions to shared problems. Regions often make that critical step to disseminate European information to the citizens, municipalites and cities, translating it into a language that citizens understand. This is why we recognise a crucial role of the regions (supported by their energy agencies) as the Covenant territorial coordinators within the CoM. The regions bring European policy alive – by providing practical guidance and local examples for how CoM and other European policies and programmes relate to citizens in their own regions.

This brings me to another important point – a supporting framework programme is crucial to help spreading innovative actions and investments at a large scale. We, the regions, expect (and need!) a successor to the Intelligent Energy Europe programme within Horizon 2020 programme, hopefully a standalone programme that is focused beyond technological innovation, also on social innovation, governance, visioning, networking, and financial innovation, as well as ensuring the continuation of the Covenant of Mayors at least until 2020 and possibly beyond.

In many regions, the Intelligent Energy Europe project in the past served as trigger that made a key impact in initiating positive change and made that important links between regions (cities, municipalities), technology and financing.

I seize the occasion to also point out that more importance has to be given to sustainable energy planning at the local level and to the development of collaboration models in sustainable energy planning between regional and local public authorities (multi level Governance!). This should be recognised in our key policy documents in the future – the Green Paper “2030 framework for climate and energy policies”, for example. In this regard, the lack of expertise and the consequent need for capacity building also need to be emphasised.

We believe in the importance of regions and local authorities, who, with the precious support of their energy agencies, have played a key role in the implementation of sustainability policies so far, and will be at your full disposal in the transition of the current European energy systems towards energy efficiency and renewable energy in the future.