Energy & Territory at the Open Days: From Multilevel governance to local agreements

The event offered high profile representatives from the EU and local authorities the opportunity to discuss concrete solutions. Speakers responsible for territorial and energy issues compared and confronted different point of views.

Speakers

• Ms. Kathleen Van Brempt – Member of the European Parliament (ITRE/S&D)
• M. Tudor Constantinescu – Principal Adviser to Philip Lowe, Director-General (DG ENER), European Commission
• M. Jean-Luc Daubaire – Deputy Mayor of the city of Rennes
• M. Gérard Magnin – Executive Director of Energy Cities
• M. Rudolf Niessler – European Commission (DG REGIO) – Director Policy coordination
• M. Lambert Van Nistelrooij – Member of the European Parliament (REGIO/EPP)

Territorial cohesion and energy are two newcomers in the Lisbon Treaty. The first is an addition to the existing notions of social and economic cohesion, while the second is the subject of an entirely new section in the Treaty.

Even though they are two essential components of European policy-making, they are all too often considered separately. This disconnection has meant that all categories of energy consumers - including city and regional planners - have become unaware of the consequences of their behaviour on climate change and resource depletion. In a sense, they have become short-sighted.

Fortunately, local and regional authorities are coming to grips with this issue and progressively taking the lead in reconciling energy with its territorial dimension.

Take aways

1. A consensus emerges, recognising crosscutting issues between territorial cohesion and energy.
2. A proof that these questions are being taken into consideration is the newest ERDF regulations proposal by the European Commission. Energy and Climate are topics interesting the whole European society.
3. There are signs that lead us to think that the time for a European Urban Policy is coming, recognising cities as important actors of the regional policy. In this light, the URBAN Integroup of the European Parliament has a role to play.

This work in process has to go on. An important coming milestone is the Energy Roadmap 2050 and its local implications. Just as Europe need macroeconomic and geopolitical long term thinking regarding energy issues, territories must as well project themselves in the future and bring up local energy roadmaps in order to come up with innovative and relevant solutions to the energy issue.

This will be the topic of the coming IMAGINE day organised by Energy Cities and the URBAN Intergroup in Brussels on November 9th.

Read also the article "Low energy cities" published in the Parliament Magazine - Regional Review, October 2011.