European Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen and Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska are hosting this conference on energy-intensive industries (EII), during which all stakeholders will have the opportunity to set out their views on the way ahead regarding the most relevant issues for European EII.
The conference will map the key challenges and explore issues including innovation, investments, energy, circular economy and trade. The event will include information and discussion sessions, explaining the various EU tools at hand and identifying concrete opportunities for stakeholders. It will help to define the concrete way forward, to be taken up in the scope of the Commission High-Level Expert Group on EII.
The conference will be a whole day event, organised in four discussion panels on innovation, trade, investments and circular economy respectively:
1. The first panel will discuss research, development and innovation opportunities and highlight success stories in the scope of Horizon 2020 Public Private Partnerships (SPIRE and ‘Factories of the Future’) with a view to either multi-sectorial or sector-specific projects. The new policy framework relating to the fifth pillar of the Energy Union Strategy will be discussed. Innovative alloys and energy and climate-related challenges of the non-ferrous metals industry will be presented, including national energy policies and electricity market design by one of the biggest aluminium smelters.
2. The second panel is on trade and will include presentations of DG Trade, producers, traders, end-users and the perspective of trade unions. It will in particular discuss the array of existing policy instruments of relevance for the current situation of EII. It will also look ahead to future challenges and opportunities for specific sectors, such as steel.
3. The third panel will present investment opportunities for steel and other EII under EFSI. In particular, it will showcase 2-3 success stories on projects already approved for funding by the EIB (such as ARVEDI steel plant and Metsä paper plant), providing best practice examples of how stakeholders can make use of new EU instruments.
4. The fourth panel is on circular economy and will commence with a general presentation by DG Environment and the perspective of the European Parliament. This will be completed by industry views on recyclability and durability, presented by traders-recyclers, scrap users and the construction sector. The objective is to discuss the emerging business opportunities stemming from the Circular Economy Package.
The conference will end with a poster session regarding concrete funding possibilities under Horizon 2020, together with a networking event.
Registration is open until 31 January 2016.
