 Good afternoon. You're all very welcome to the Institute for International European Affairs. A couple of practicalities, emergency estate, the way we claim, I think. Unless you have wings, yes. And telephones, please, on to silent. Not necessarily completely off, because I understand that I should encourage you to tweet at IIEA, if you're one of the Twitter at IIEA. We are delighted to today have with us Dirk Becker from the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency in Brussels. He's Executive Director of that agency. Dirk has, I think, something like three decades experience with the Commission Services, and more than ten years as Executive Director of the agency. A lot of experience in the field of transport, energy and research. He has, I think, he has influence over very considerable budgets. So he's able to help things happen at the European level. And he's going to talk to us today about connecting Europe, securing supply and sustainability. The presentation will be on the record, and then we'll have a discussion where the Charm House Rule will apply. Dirk, can I invite you to address it, please? Of course. Thank you. Well, good afternoon. Good morning. I was going to say it's a bit later. Good afternoon all. I'm pleased to be here just to explain to you a bit more about CEP and how it's going to help or how it's helping the investment in energy. And I should tell you first that I'm more on the practical side. So I think quite often you have political people coming to explain a bit about policy. I'm more of the practical side because the, as you'll see in a second, it's the Commission who decides on the policy. My colleagues and myself, we're taking care of the implementation. But nevertheless, I think it's maybe good that you see a bit how things are working in Brussels. And so if I go, I have to turn myself a bit to see my own side. So I don't know where you can see it in the back. But so the agency was established already more than 10 years ago. But then in 2014, the Commission decided to expand from only transport, which is what we were managing before, to the whole CEP program. And CEP is the Connecting Europe Facility. And it's got three parts. It's transport, energy and ICT. And so we're managing these three parts. But then the Commission decided as well to give us parts of the Horizon 2020 program to manage. So meaning we have quite some budget on, which I will show in a second, on transport and energy and the fields of Horizon 2020. But so we have, I will just highlight a bit a few things, meaning that we are managing the whole life cycle of a project. We assist the Commission as well in the monitoring of the transport corridors, and of course, what more of interest for you today on the PCI, so the projects of common interest. So just to tell you a bit about, I just mentioned that I'm not in charge of the policy, but in implementation, you see here a bit an overview of how it works between an executive agency in the Commission and the Commission's services. There are six executive agencies just to give you some background. The agency and director of this got the biggest budget because CEP is quite an important budget. And so the Commission defines the policy, as you can see. So the whole strategy, objectives and priority areas are decided by them. So if there's an area that you're not pleased to, that's not covered, don't shoot me, but I would say you should contact the Commission, of course. You can post a message to me too. The Commission selects a project that will be financed. It will take program decision and at the end it will evaluate the program and look as well at the agency performance. As this being said, as you can see at the right-hand side, the agency returned policy into action, meaning that once the Commission has decided on the program, we organise the call for proposals. So if there are your problems, then you can shoot me or you can address yourself to me. We monitor, and that's I think the main part, the whole financial, technical and financial implementation of projects, giving assistance to beneficiaries, making pre-financing intermediate payments, visits on the spot to see whether the project has been realised, and so all in all to ensure sound financial management. Now just to say a few words more on what I mentioned at the beginning about the budget. So you can, as you can see there, the two main projects or programs that we're managing is CEPH and Horizon 2020. On CEPH you can see on the right-hand side, you see a bit of the budget repartitioning. So you can see that the huge budget is spent on transport, and that's as well, and that was a novelty in the previous, in this or your present trans perspective, that part of the cohesion fund as well is managed by our agency. So this was, in the past, was all done by indirect management, so the concerned member states, they got the budget from the commission, and they were managing it as they thought it would be okay. But now the commission has decided that part of the cohesion fund and then parts in particular on transport would be managed by our agency. So it's the commission always deciding on which projects are being managed, which is, I would say, a bit of a revolution, got quite some feedback negative in the beginning from the concerned member states, but that has overcome my mind. And then of course we have 4.5 billion that we're managing on CEPH Energy, and then a small part on telecom, and then we have 5.3 billion on Horizon 2020. Now, for those who weren't there when I said it a few minutes ago, what is important to know I think is that there are possibilities or there are people who are working on Horizon 2020 in particular, you should consider that there might be possibilities within the CEPH to implement or to exploit your project. So I will come back to that in a second as well, but the fact that the commission put in our agency, sorry, Horizon 2020 as well, has got advantages, which I will explain in a second, which could be very interesting for you. So at the moment, for this finance perspective period, our agency is managing almost 34 billion euros over the period. We have at the moment more than 1,500 actions or grant agreements that we signed with beneficiaries, and that will grow to around 2,000 by 2020. Okay, the staff, I started the agency in 2007, two secretaries or one secretary, now we're 260, so there's a small evolution I would say in the growing up of the agency. So the CEPH program supports in particular that's I think important to know for those who don't know the program, the development of high-performing, efficient interconnected Trans-European networks on transport energy and ICT, and the idea is to fill in the missing links in the European transport and energy field, I would say. Now, what's in my opinion the added value of the agency? And I put it in four blocks. I think over the years, and I think that's the reason why the commission decided as well to hand over to the agency more projects as of 2014, is that we have established a good track record in project management. Before the agency was created, and I will talk now for transport that was the only thing that the agency was managing in the beginning. On transport projects, the commission sometimes had delays of more than a year, up to a year and a half, to make intermediate payments. Now we're up to 30, 40 days between the moment we get the payment request and it's being implemented. I mentioned as well that we're given quite some support to beneficiaries, but the important for the commission as well is that we raise the visibility of the EU support, because too often still there are complaints about, I would say, European citizens, they say, but we have no clue what the commission is doing. We have no clue what the SEV program is for and even less what the Horizon 2020 program is doing. So that's why as well we try to increase the visibility by making brochures with success stories, by going on the spot, by participating in public events. So I mean, for one other reason, on Irish projects you would like to do something or don't hesitate to call me or to contact us. I mean, if possible, we will come and help you in organizing things or even in part, paving with elements in there. So we highlight the performance. I mentioned as well that the commission is sometimes being looked at that, okay, you're spending billions of euros on different projects and we don't know what's the result. So we're trying to put more an accent on the results to see things that are happening. And then I would say as well the last part is synergies and harmonization. So since we're managing different programs, of course we try to go for an organized approach in procedures, so beneficiaries who have, for instance, SEV programs or SEV projects and Horizon that they don't have different approaches and that we try to simplify as much as possible there as well. The synergy part is, and that's something I mentioned slightly before but which I would like to highlight is that since we're having SEV and Horizon 2020, we try to see whether our synergies and avoid as well overlaps because sometimes you can imagine that between Horizon 2020, let's say a transport or energy project might go in the same direction as financing that we could do on SEV, sorry. And therefore we're looking into this and trying to avoid this but as well try to see how we can get synergies and in particular how, as I mentioned before, how people who have developed an Horizon 2020 project and I know in Ireland they have as well quite some Horizon 2020 projects ongoing. There might be a means to help you in the implementation or exploitation of it in the SEV program. So that's something you should look into or something where we as agency could help you as well to tell you what are the possibilities in that sector. So why do we have the 10-T policy? Of course what is important is that we promote the interconnections and interoperability of the national networks because the well-connected networks are of course the backbone of the US energy system so whatever we can do to encourage this is important. And then on the 10-year regulation is there to fix the priorities on what should be developed, electric lines, storage, smart grids, etc. Anyway, I put the PCIs in the middle because you can imagine that for us as well, for the Commission but for you as well, the development of the PCIs is an important role in achieving the goals and the commitments that have been set for the European Union in the near future. Because the 2020 and 2030 climate analysis strategies, as you know, they increase the share of renewables and the electricity and the connection targets up to 15% by 2030. So I mean, there are definitely a necessity and I know in Ireland it's still slightly behind schedule to get to the 10% so I'm sure that the SEV program could help there and for the future in particular. Okay, this is a bit the organisation of the PCIs. I guess I don't have to explain to you how many PCIs there are, but in particular of importance and on this overview are the 110 electricity and smart grids. And of course for Ireland, you have a particular interest in the northern seas part where the development of the PCIs will contribute to better regional development but as well to a more structured implementation within Europe. And of course the first direct link and that's I think to reassure you, the Celtic interconnector is very important for Ireland and I can tell you, even though I'm not supposed to make policy statements, but I would like to tell you that this is as well for the European Commission and the agency is such a very important connecting thing, I guess in particular in the light of the Brexit for you as well it's very important, but just to reassure you that you can rely on the European Commission's support to develop this further. Of course apart from that there's not only the interconnector there are in this part on the northern seas as you can see on the slide. There are great reinforcements that are being organised between Denmark and Germany and the northern part of Germany but there's well new links between Belgium and the UK and UK and France are being developed. I won't go in detail on the other parts. Now what's the portfolio that we're managing? Just to give you a rough idea, I said you saw the global budget that we're managing but then in particular now on the energy portfolio. We have as you can see the right side so far since the start of 2014, we have 117 actions that we're funding for a total amount of 2.4 billion and with the total value I would say of 6 billion euros so it's quite a solid impact. You can see that all sectors are involved. Of course it's mainly electricity and gas where we have most of the projects, still a lot of studies so you see that we're getting now closer to implementation but that's something I hope will grow in future. But just a few examples maybe that I could mention about projects that have come out of our portfolio and that have been finalised because from the whole portfolio from 2017 we've already finalised 40, so 40 have really been achieved and that's one important that respect to those works action between Alitus which is in Lithuania and then the Lithuania-Polish border which has allowed for the first time to disconnect or to open a bit the grits of the Baltic countries and to link them with Western Europe so there was really a very important issue there to end the energy isolation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia where this was done in 2015 and 2016 and the commission co-funded around 27 billion euros. Then of course I should not forget to mention the two studies for the Greenlink interconnected that have already been financed. These have been and one of them is ongoing the other one is closed and rather new as you can see here is that on CO2 and smart grits I would say I'm not too pleased to say that it's only a limited number of actions but this should be growing because we're really pushing there from the commission to develop further on smart grits in particular because there is definitely a need to increase the integration of renewable resources into the distribution and transmission networks and so therefore we're pushing to get more projects there and for CO2 as well efforts to transfer the high quantities of CO2 away from the heavy production areas to storage facilities under the seabed of the North Sea. So this is a bit the global envelope what I would like to say further is to go back then to Ireland I mean I mentioned most of them already but so you see the PCIs that we are financing at this moment that are actively being financed through gas projects but then of course in particular we have the Celtic interconnector and then the Greenlink which are very important for Ireland and which we are very actively financing Now I should say as well for all of you that I would say that I'm particularly pleased with the management of projects by Ireland and it's not only for energy as I mentioned to a few colleagues before as well for transport we see a very very good performance in Ireland compared to quite some other countries in Europe I would say or from the European Union you're performing I would say at the higher top of performance now this is not only appreciated by the agency, by the commission but I think it's important for you as well to know that when you come with projects I would very serious say I will not mention names but there are certain countries when they come with new projects I reflect twice before I think it could be a good idea but just to thank you as well for the very good execution that you have here in Ireland and I mentioned them now but the four in particular of course that we are looking at are the two gas ones which at the bottom you see the amounts that are supported or given 0.9 for the Mofat interconnection and 6.540 for the Iceland maybe underground storage but of course the two main PCIs that we are financing or co-financing better is the Celtic interconnector and then the Greenlink both of them we expect that quite soon you will come for request I guess for financing for the implementation and as I mentioned before we are really looking forward to assist you in the development of them because of course after I guess after the Brexit you will be particularly interested in the Celtic interconnector so that's clear something that from our side as well we think it's quite important to develop so the way ahead we are getting close to the end of the finance perspective period actual ones at the end of 18 as you know the period goes to 2020 and so of course at this moment the commission has introduced the proposal for the new CEF2 where the idea is to increase even or to strengthen the environmental dimension of CEF where the idea in the proposal is that 60% of the budget will contribute to climate objectives so that's a very important target and for that we requested a budget of 42.2 billion euros for the total of CEF of which 8.65 billion is for energy so as I mentioned we want to strengthen the environmental dimension and then of course in particular this will help if the budget comes through we'll have to see now in the discussions with the budgetary authority in how far they will follow the commission in its request but I can say that given the importance of energy there's quite some positive I would say openness and opening from the budgetary authority to come to a rather high budget I'm not sure whether we get the full budget because if I see at the previous perspective as well they were cut nevertheless but we do expect anyway given the importance of the whole energy and transport area that there will be quite some assistance there to help reinforce the energy union and to fulfill the commitments under the Paris agreement so that's surely something that we will think is very it would be very important some conclusions maybe okay so I hope that it was maybe a fast one but I wanted to leave enough time for some questions but I hope that you see a bit better on what CEF is doing for the development of the energy sector and how it's better the secure energy system is secured better so we 50% as well that's important to know that 50% of the energy budget so far is allocated to electricity PCIs and smart grids and so this is quite important in helping in the energy transition and as I mentioned in the next period it will even be more important our contribution there and then the last line which I mentioned before because I asked my colleagues last Friday before I went on weekend I told them give me now elements I should ask people in Ireland to improve and the feedback was we don't see things that you can improve you can always improve I say but normally when I ask them when I go to speak somewhere and I ask to have some things that can be improved there is clearly always some elements or that people say that country always delays and projects are not mature and the only thing I should say is that the cooperation is excellent so thanks again for all of this and I've seen it myself personally in transport a few years ago the cooperation is good promises are kept and the execution is ok so my end word would be that ok really you can rely on our support to help you with the further development of PCIs but as well with EVEF now that you have quite some Horizon 2020 projects as well that are being developed here are being done I would say if you have questions don't hesitate to come or to me or my colleagues I guess like you said the information and my presentation will be shared and there you will see the address as on where you can get information because on the agency's website you have a fish and overview of each every project that we're financing so you can if you're interested and you have time to look a bit outside of Ireland to see what's being done in the rest of Europe you can have access to all what's being done there so that's one element but on the other hand I would say don't hesitate to call us if for instance you're working on a Horizon project and you think it might have potential to be exploited to be implemented but you don't know very well where the financing should come through give me a call I'm sure we can help you I have as well made a proposal to the commission that the agency could be some kind of a help desk or a one stop shop point where you could come with questions like this on financing of course or if you want to know when will be a call on this or that you can ask us but the ideas or my idea would be that indeed on financing because that's getting more and more I would say not problematic it's important to know what are the possibilities including possibilities to combine with private financing because we have as well launched recently the first blending call so that people can really see that for certain projects the banks are maybe not interested to help you unless if there is some support of the commission and so we've launched the first project where a part is a grant so they get money to start off so that the bank agrees as well to finance and to take a lower risk on the financing of the project so these are kind of things where we are working on and I would say if you have any questions issues in that sense don't hesitate to call me thank you very much