The European Sustainable Development Strategy and Greece
This year's Athens Conference focused on a particularly topical and important matter, namely the interplay between Economic Development, the Energy Sector and Environmental Sustainability.
Held at the eve of the 2007 World Environment Day and soon after the March 2007 European Council (which focused especially on climate change and energy policy, signifying a particular conjuncture of developments in the area of energy, climate change and sustainable development), the conference explored how the European policy framework (the European Sustainable Development Strategy in particular) impacts on and/or informs the design and implementation of energy and development policy in Greece.
The conference, which was for a second year running co-organised with the Hellenic LSE Alumni Association and kindly hosted by the Bank of Greece, attracted over 200 participants as well as significant publicity in the press.
As with the previous conferences, this year's conference brought together prominent speakers from the academic, policy and business communities. Keynote speakers were the Director for Sustainable Development of DG Environment, Mr Timo Makela (replacing the Commissioner Mr Stavros Dimas that due to ill health was unable to attend) and LSE's Professor of European Integration, Professor Iain Begg.
The conference proceedings were opened by Dr Nikolaos Garganas, Governor of the Bank of Greece and Chair of the Advisory Board of the Hellenic Observatory, and was also greeted by Mr Dimitris Paraskevas, President of the Greek LSE Alumni Association.
Speaking on behalf of the Greek government and analysing the Greek policy framework for energy and the environment, Dr Yiannis Valinakis, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, opened the second session of the conference, which also included a panel discussion amongst representatives of key social (ISTAME), environmental (Greenpeace Greece), energy (Hellenic Petroleum, Greek Public Power Corporation, Greek Regulation Authority for Energy) and financial actors (Alpha Bank). The Director of the Hellenic Observatory, Professor Kevin Featherstone and the HO Lecturer in the Political Economy of Greece and Southeast Europe, Dr Vassilis Monastiriotis, who also had the responsibility for the academic coordination of the programme, chaired the two sessions of the conference.
Key findings of the conference were the need for an incentives-based price policy on energy that will be successfully combined with with a robust and appropriately designed regulatory framework, so that both prices and regulations will steer harmoniously the economy towards the development and use of more environmentally-friendly and more efficient forms of energy.
It was emphasised in the conference that policy interventions to this end should go beyond the narrow confines of energy policy, to include other less obvious policy areas - for example transportation and housing policy (e.g., with incentives for the building of carbon-neutral homes).
On the other hand, the experts discussion also highlighted some inherent weaknesses of the Greek reality, including the continuous reliance of domestic energy production on natural lignite and the inability to exploit systematically the natural and renewable energy sources that are in abundance in Greece mainly due to the lack of the necessary infrastructures and technologies, at least relative to some other European examples.
Press release & Event programme
Press: Business, Kerdos, Kyriakis, Express, LSE
PPT PRESENTATIONS
Welcome by Dr Nikolaos Garganas, Governor, Bank of Greece; Chair, Hellenic Observatory Advisory Board
Mr Timo Makela, Director for Sustainable Development, DG Environment
The European Sustainable Development Strategy
Professor Iain Begg, European Institute, LSE
The ESDS and the need for a 'smart' Lisbon Strategy
Mr Yiannis Emiris, Manager, Investment Banking, Alpha Bank
Financing sustainable development
PHOTO GALLERY
