 And so out of that study became a very clear need to focus on competitiveness. And we were seeing that express itself through the transatlantic trade and investment partnership. We were seeing that conversation come through and our European colleagues recommending that we open an energy chapter in those trade negotiations. And then the crisis in Ukraine hit the annexation of Crimea and that conversation on energy security became more intense. It became a national security imperative and led, of course, to a very forward leaning statement at the G7 summit in subsequent meetings on how to work together as the group of seven as a transatlantic community on energy security. So timely, important, and we have absolutely the right person to help us think about these issues. And we're delighted to welcome Dominique Restori, who is Director General for Energy of the European Commission. Director General Restori has had a distinguished career prior to this position. He was the Director General of the Joint Research Center and has had a long and distinguished career in DG energy, energy and transport before it became DG energy. And has followed European energy policy for over two decades. So literally, this is one of the most experienced European colleagues we have on this subject. So we're going to invite Director General Restori to help us give some shaping thoughts about this dynamic. And then Sarah is going to moderate a very lively discussion. And knowing many of the colleagues in the room, Sarah, you're going to get some tough questions out there. So with that, we welcome you, we thank Director General Restori and Sarah, thank you for a great conversation and welcome again. Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. I'm very pleased to be there with you in the center for strategic and international studies. At the time, energy panorama is changing rapidly. And this is true at all levels. This is true when we are speaking about energy supply and you refer rightly to the fantastic boom coming from Schengas. I had, as you know, the opportunity to visit yesterday Pennsylvania and many sites and I was very pleased to see on site how rapid is this development and profitable, not only for the region but for the global competitiveness of US economy. And this will affect at the time not only US but also global energy market. At the same time, as you know, it is also important to take into account the rapid development of demand for energy. Energy demand will increase and will increase a lot in the following years, do in particular to the need and the demand coming from emerging economies. China, India, and due to the effect of not only demography, but also urbanization. We are shifting from rural area to urban area. And in two decades, 70% of the global population will be located in urban area. This will be at the origin of some difficulties, as it is the case already today in China, with deterioration of air quality in the main cities. But in addition, we will have also to take into account the rapid development of middle class, the new middle class in China, in India with a fantastic appetite for energy. So if you want demography, plus urbanization, plus rapid development of middle class, the result is a fantastic demand for energy. And this has to be seen in the context of an international competition in order to access to energy resources. In that context, I see frankly the transatlantic dialogue between US and EU has particularly crucial. And this is the case, because you know if you want the US and the EU GDP, we are representing together more than 45% of the world GDP. If you are incorporating, at the time you are also speaking about the tip, world trade, EU and US, we are representing more than one third of the trade at international level. Accordingly, all these aspects are absolutely fundamental. Second, US and EU, we have in common many things. And I see a lot of convergence regarding our key energy policy priorities. You in US, you are developing a new approach for shifting to a more low-carbon economy. And Shellgal again will help you in order to reduce dramatically CO2 emissions. And at the same time, we Europeans, we are preparing the 2030 energy and climate framework with the same priorities in order to reduce 40% of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. But also, on both sides of the Atlantic, we are now paying a lot of attention to the level of competitiveness. Accordingly, our intention is not only to develop a low-carbon economy, an European low-carbon economy, but a competitive European low-carbon economy. And for that, it is important also to learn lessons from experience. This has been the case since the beginning of the year regarding our experience on renewables, positive for certain aspects, development of technologies and so on. But less negative in other aspects, in particular, the need to shift from subsidies to market-based approach. And we have reached already a consensus at the level of our leader in March in order to go in that direction. And to eliminate other consequences, all unjustified subsidies at the origin of distortion of competition and uncontrolled costs. And this will be fundamental in order to attract private investment absolutely needed for this sector. And we should also base our approach on energy efficiency on a new capacity, not to go into a direction of over-regulation, but to well-identify key sectors and to facilitate access to credit and to finance. In particular, I have in mind the housing sector and the fantastic challenge representing by insulation of existing building. And I have, of course, in mind the need to boost local economy going in that direction. And this will be at the origin also of a creation of a lot of new jobs. And this is valid from the extreme north to the extreme south of Europe, from the west to the east. In addition, we see now the need to combine our approach and to go into the direction of a more coordinated policy and presence at the time. Energy security is at the top of political priorities and concern. And as you know, this is mainly due in Europe to Russia Ukraine crisis. Our approach is to distinguish energy and gas discussion to political consideration. But for some partners, this is not so simple to be clear. Accordingly, we are now assisting discussion between Russia and Ukraine. These are the trilateral discussion in order to finish with, I can say, good result. The first challenge has been to convince Russia to discuss prices and prices based on market mechanisms. After weeks and weeks, this has been accepted. And now the point is to finalize discussion on level of prices. But probably we should also discuss other things, including long-term contract. I mean quantities as well as prices in order to reduce the permanent dependence of Ukraine with Russia. We had already the opportunity to cooperate, I can say, on a permanent basis with all US department regarding this crisis, with White House, with DOE, with State Department, et cetera. And this has been extremely successful. For example, we have been in a situation to agree between Slovakia and Ukraine, an important new approach regarding new gas pipe and reverse flow. And this into the direction of the main gas site and storage in Ukraine. And this will be operational before next winter. This is important. At the same time, regarding energy security, we have already obtained, based on our proposal, the presentation of a real strategy on energy security, the endorsement of immediate measures to be launched regarding the preparation of next energy winter. And we will pay attention to all aspects, storage, reverse flow, urgent new infrastructure, in particular in Baltic area and with eastern countries. New possibilities coming from LNG, et cetera. This will be important. At the game, in conformity with the successful G7 summit, we will maintain a bridge with our partner, and in particular US. This will be fundamental. For the medium term, largely beyond moderation of demand, we will have to go in two directions. First of all, an increasing level of development for internal resources, indigenous resources, including when this is possible, nuclear and shell gas. We will launch a new scientific platform regarding shell gas next week in order to facilitate a link with what you are doing in the US. But also, in order to manage that, less on emotional ideology and more based on evidence. And I was very pleased to examine the situation you have developed in your country, based on an active cooperation between all key actors at all levels, not only national level, but at state level, with a clear involvement of all actors, NGO, commissioner, district. This is fundamental in order to finish well, because all these things should be seen as profitable for all, for domestic citizens, as well as for the global level of competitiveness of the economy. And of course, we will have also to go into the direction of diversification of supply. And we have proposed a new piece, not only a new capacity to exploit fully LNG, but also to accelerate some projects in the south of Europe, because there is many capacities not used in terms of preserve and pipes, but also regarding the so-called southern corridor. And the so-called southern corridor is affecting some countries, I can say, not easy. I can say that when we are speaking about Central Asia area, Caucasian area. When we are speaking about all those in direct contact with Iraq, Syria, have not to be long regarding the dimension of the challenge. And without an increasing level of cooperation between United States and European Union, it will not be possible to deliver and to deliver in time in terms of acceleration, including with a new increasing role of Turkey as a key transit country. This will be absolutely fundamental. For all of these things, US and EU should act based on not only common values, this is evident. But also based on more convergences. And this is valid also at the time we are speaking about the TTIP. The TTIP should not only be based on implementation of horizontal trade rules for the energy sector, but based also on the new capacity to better and fully exploit what we are doing in the context of our day-to-day cooperation. For example, with DOE, we are developing a lot of projects, concrete projects on smart grid, on electromobility, on nuclear, on hydrogen, on many things. And we should consider a new capacity to translate this cooperation into a common standard. Implemented in the context of a wall chain of energy. I mean, dedicated to generation, dedicated to transmission, distribution, to storage, to energy demand. And if we will be successful maintaining a clear bridge with business and companies, we will finish well, and we will finish successfully. This is a big challenge, of course. But I am confident what we are doing together. Regarding definition of energy priorities, regarding development of income on of new technologies, and technologies will be key. Acting at external level in the context of present crisis, but also largely beyond, this will open new route to combine our two main goals. I mean, competitive low carbon economy, as well as an increased level of energy security. And this will be profitable for our society, but profitable also for the world. Thank you very much for your attention. Dominique Restoy, thank you very much for those comments. I think they touched on probably everything that people are wondering about in their room. And so we'll have plenty of time for questions and discussion. I thought I might start by just kind of pulling out two themes that you identified in your remarks. You know, in this town we have a phrase, we don't use it all the time in implementation, but it's never let a good crisis go to waste. And these days I've been thinking about that in sort of a European, EU, US, transatlantic dialogue context, right? Both for a lot of the things that Heather had brought up, and some of the work that we've been doing on the geopolitics of the impact of unconventionals, it does definitely seem to me that Europe in particular has been going through sort of phases in its evolution, in its energy policy as do all countries, but very explicitly trying to be ambitious in terms of environmental, the environmental agenda, indeed trying to be a leader in terms of decarbonization goals. But then, you know, in the wake of what is a global financial crisis being very concerned about competitiveness, and then now in a very rapid sort of succession having the energy security agenda thrust right back in a very prominent way within its sort of limelight and agenda setting, I wonder in the context of a crisis or in the context of a situation that sort of causes you to look very, very deeply at your priorities, have there been shifts in the balance of those things? And do you, in the work that you do, find them to be mutually reinforcing shifts, right, so things that support the agenda and the strategy that the EU has put forth and give you opportunity to do new things, or do they challenge it? And I'll follow up with another question, but maybe start with that. Obviously, energy security is opening a new momentum to develop things differently and based on more, you know, more important capacity to deliver and to deliver rapidly. And first of all, there is now a new common understanding in Europe regarding the need to join efforts largely beyond some differences we have between our member states in order to act differently. This is particularly important at the time we have to manage also common external project. First point, second point, we see the need to maintain a full compatibility and the real bridge between low-carbon economy and energy security. Because at the time we are speaking about progressive decarbonization of economy, we are encouraging development of, in particular, indigenous resources. Shell gas in the US are contributing a lot for reducing CO2 emissions. But in Europe, the combination of nuclear and renewable energy is also extremely important because today, not in 2020 or 2030, 50% of European electricity generation is CO2 free today. Renewables representing 23% of electricity generation and nuclear 28%. Accordingly, we see the need to maintain a clear link and not to oppose sustainability, competitiveness and security and we have a chance if we will manage well not only to well combine the three but to finish with important results regarding the three priorities. In my opinion, it would be an error to oppose, for example, competitiveness and sustainability. At the time it is crystal clear, we can open new route for energy policy with a new capacity to finish with more jobs and more economic activities at all levels. And it's important in that context not to forget the fact that energy is affecting the whole population. 100% day and night. But energy is also affecting the whole economy and not only the so-called intensive industries. Accordingly, developing this approach will open also new opportunities. For example, look about the technologies. We are speaking about ongoing cooperation between US and EU concerning smart grid but we should go beyond in finishing with smart phone. Introducing new technologies directly in individual house affecting directly the final client. This is a sort of new quasi-revolution based on the same model we had for developing iPhone, iPad and so on. But giving to the final energy consumer the full command of its energy consumption. This will be a fantastic challenge for industry in order to produce industrial devices. And it could be good to facilitate things in order to have all this production based in our countries. And also to open a new facility to balance energy bill competitiveness and with a rapid elimination of energy waste. This will be absolutely fundamental. And this, I can say, is not for 20 years. I'm not speaking for 20, 25 or 20, 30. Technologies are mature to prepare the ground for the massive distribution of smart power. In order to prolong the efforts already in progress concerning smart meters and smart grid. You answered my follow-up question which was whether or not sort of the balance or the sort of current geopolitical situation and the opportunity difficulties it presents was bringing more cohesion among the member states that do remember countries that you are working with or if it has sort of exacerbated some of the differences. Maybe you could follow up on that. But additionally, I wanted to point out one of the things I found sort of striking in your remarks is you have an optimism that is related to and along the lines of the time scale that it takes to develop energy projects and new energy technologies. And there's a lot of people within the energy space that we work with that are very optimistic about a series of future energy revolutions and energy changes that are underway and very optimistic about them as you've just spoke. It is hard, though, to bring those sort of optimistic for looking science and technology indeed sort of developments and apply them to a situation that is somewhat acute, right? And so one of the things that I was curious about in sort of the sort of G7 response and future responses to sort of the current situation as you're thinking about EU energy strategy is how to take some of those longer range, which in the energy world isn't that long range, 2030's not that far away, and allow them to have sort of the political and geopolitical impact that you seek to have them have today. It is a conversation we're having a lot here in Washington. You can say, first of all, for your first remark, in this crisis context, we see a rapid evolution of attitude of many of our member states. And for example, some European leaders, about 18, received two letters from President Putin. And it has been possible to manage twice a unique response signed by the President of the European Commission with the full support of all member states. This has been the first signals sent also to some in the world regarding the new capacity in Europe to manage the things having in mind the general interest we have in common. And this will remain also one of the consequence of a specific situation we have now. At global level, the main discussion in the last G7 summit have been around energy issues. And it has been possible to manage things well prepared in Rome at the G7 Ministerial in order not to finish with a sort of usual concept, but with a real strategy and a real political will to go in that direction. At the same time, we prepare in a few weeks a new European energy security strategy based on clear priorities and with a clear distinction between immediate actions and medium and long term, because as you know and as you said, with energy policy we have to come back to when you are investing, we are not investing for two or three years, we are investing for decades. But this new capacity to use momentum positively will open a new chance to deliver. We'll start to take some questions from the audience. We just have a couple of grand rules. Please wait for the mic. Please identify yourself and your affiliation and if you can please make sure it's a question. That would be very helpful. So I think we've got one in the back there. Hi, thanks for the speech. A student from size Johns Hopkins. Not only like a sort of interdimensional cooperation between Europe and the United States, what I can also think about in your speech is about outer factors such as China. So either Europe could be good customer or at the same time could be competitor. And do you see the possibility that the United States could be sort of stimulant? I mean China could be stimulant in terms like a transatlantic cooperation or do you see that Europe could be independent in front of like a China factors in terms of like buying energy or competing? Thank you. China is one of the most important actors at the time we are speaking about the world energy panorama. And China is fighting in order to access to energy resources everywhere. We received recently in Brussels the Chinese president, we have a summit. And it is crystal clear, China is present in the context of a dialogue with US, with EU, but also with Russia. The Chinese president signed with President Putin an important agreement few weeks after the summit with EU. China is also present in Central Asia. China is also present in Africa. And in that context, the energy demand coming from China will remain one of the most important. As I mentioned before, this will continue during a long period because of the acceleration of the move from rural area to urban area and the multiplication of middle class in China. But at the same time, China is confronted with difficult challenges not only in terms of security of supply but also in terms of rapid deterioration of air quality in particular in the center of the main Chinese cities. And accordingly, we have the need to cooperate with US, with EU in order to find the adequate response for that. One is a shift from coal to other energy sources and the abandon of any domestic use of coal in urban area. Another one is the development of clean transport. Accordingly, the development also of electromobility. This has to be seen in the global context of smart cities. This will be important at the time where we will discuss the preparation of the next international climate conference. As you know, the former mayor of New York, Michael Blomberg, has been designated Special Envoy of the Secretary General of the United Nations in charge in particular of compact mayors. All these aspects will become extremely important accordingly. Any effort in order to associate China in order to become more active regarding development of transparent and competitive energy market as well as the capacity to increase the sensibilization of China with every climate change and the need to act, to act will be profitable for all. And I see the need to address this issue and to discuss also perhaps more between the US and the EU how to facilitate this common approach in order to help also China to make a bad choice and to find the adequate solution regarding their specific challenges. We've been paying a lot of attention as well to, as you mentioned, to sort of the potential for again taking another sort of crisis and not letting it go to waste, the potential for sort of the local pollution concerns in China to drive either a shift to cold and natural gas switching or greater efficiency measures or examine the options they realistically have on the table. I do also wonder though thinking that we also have the strategic and economic dialogue coming up here in the United States with China. Another driver that we've been very interested in is looking at some of the economic reforms that China will have to undertake in the coming years and one of their key inputs in that reform process is what are energy prices and how are energy prices rationalized within their system? What is the role of state-owned enterprises in sort of their domestic energy economy? Are all those things, things that you're discussing with the Chinese as well within the context of the efforts you were just talking about? Absolutely. We are persistently insisting on the crucial importance of developing open and transparent markets oriented to competitiveness but based on market mechanisms. Yeah. And this is absolutely crucial and this will help to attract also investment and to facilitate a real new management of low-carbon economy. Accordingly, the contribution and the participation of China in the preparation of the next international climate conference will be absolutely key and for preparing that adequately discussion you will have in the US with China as well as the discussion we have with them will be of crucial importance and what we are doing together will help also in that direction. I refer to electromobility, I refer to clean transport but many other things will be important to examine. Yeah, there will be a lot of change. Yes, please. Hello, Brett Fortnum from Inside US Trade. The EU has previously expressed interest in getting into the US energy market whether it's through the lifting of the crude oil export ban or with further liquefied natural gas exports and right now the US is negotiating two large trade deals, one TTIP which you mentioned with the European Union and also the Trans-Pacific Partnership and if both of those deals were to go through I've heard that some of those Asian markets might be more attractive for US energy exports so what is the EU's goal in terms of being able to gain access to those US markets if they're also trying to compete with those Asian countries? I see a real common interest from US and EU to organize things in order to finish successfully the TTIP negotiation including for key aspects regarding energy and when you are considering the existing level of trade between US and EU in all sense you are convinced immediately regarding win-win approach we have to develop in common. Accordingly, the transatlantic negotiation will be of crucial importance in order to pave a way for further development of not only our bilateral cooperation which will be important but also to become a sort of model for the rest of the world. Accordingly, I will not oppose our relation with your relation with Asia because at the end of the day and in order to prolong what we were discussing just before, we will wish to invite our partner and in particular in Asia to go into the same direction we are promoting I mean open competitive efficient performance market where there is a need to agree in common some standard in particular that could be applicable in other areas in the rest of the world and this will be an important contribution to the development of our trade at the end of the day. And not taking out your crystal ball for a moment how important is having an explicit energy chapter within a trade agreement as part of that articulation I mean is it doable if you don't have that particular part of the agreement manifest itself can it be integrated a different way? I think in the following weeks and months we should develop efforts on both sides of the Atlantic in order to go in that direction in the direction of preparation of an energy chapter in the context of the tip but with a real capacity to organize the discussion based on capacity to deliver and for that an adequate preparation with all key companies will be also extremely relevant. Do you think that given the US focus on trying to be helpful in sort of creating a more energy secure Europe or trying to sort of help in that regard that the US might be more supportive of this idea of integrating energy into trade agreements in a way that tries to serve as an example for others sort of an extension of your own external policy goals? Absolutely we should manage that based on a coherent and global approach accordingly the trade component should be seen part of a global approach when we are speaking about a strategy it is crystal clear the strategy has to incorporate all key sectors and trade sector will be important in that regard. We've not talked very much or explicitly about a very sensitive issue of energy related sanctions which is obviously something else that we're spending a lot of time focusing on here both in the context of how it can and or should be applied to current situations whether it be sort of the ongoing negotiations with Iran or the escalating or de-escalating depending on what the new says any point in time situation between Russia and Ukraine but there's a broader academic debate here about what the appropriate role of energy is within that context is that something you're spending a lot of time thinking about as well? Yes but at the same time we have the same challenges in Europe we will have a new commission a new parliament it will be important to well explain this issue to establish the adequate link with the counterpart in the congress etc in order to prepare and to establish good conditions for the negotiation but my opinion is the existing context including in terms of energy security could facilitate the move into this direction Yes sir Brian Bury Washington correspondent Europe Politics what's your view on the development the desirability of Europe to develop its own shale gas potentials and what the European Union's role should be in that process? Two points first of all in our communication at the end of January regarding 2040 energy and climate we have presented also a recommendation and a communication on shale gas and we decided after a long internal discussion not to add any new legislation for shale gas second in the new context of energy security it has been possible to recommend in our strategy presented and discussed last week at the end of last week by our leader to present and to promote the need to develop more indigenous resources including shale gas accordingly we will launch in addition next week a scientific shale gas platform in order to assist member states and all those we will go in that direction this is important because you see we should overcome some controversial discussion we had in the past based more on emotion and on ideology sometimes and we should present the things based on real development and the US experience in that context is extremely relevant relevant for two reasons the first the adequate implementation of technique and technologies adapted to each location and the use of well known technique and second I can say an adequate governance between all those concerns not only companies not only national level the EPA USGS but also state level district level as well as at the end of the day with final consumers and this has been extremely profitable for all for individuals for regions of state and at national level accordingly it's important to base the analysis on scientific development facts and figures and we would like to maintain and to establish a link between this European shell gas platform and the US one of the questions we and we were sort of talking about this beforehand a little bit was you know we have since the onset of the US experience with shale gas and tidal production we have had lots of folks come to us and say and I know everyone in the room that participates in this field feels the same how do we replicate the US experience to which we respond do you really want to we've been we've had a remarkable boom as one would say that's still booming but it's come with a lot of issues to manage obviously and so I very much I think that you're bringing up a fact based consultative discussion is very important and one that our experience would certainly support there's an additional question also though which has been one that we've grappled with here which is sort of the commerciality of different resources which I think folks are surprised and often forget or leave off their list the things that enabled the experience we've had here which you know as we were talking about before is the land ownership and resource rights for individuals which is a pretty strong incentive for production and then also the high prices that existed here in the United States enabled that to get off the ground do you think along with this sort of fact based more consultative discussion about sort of the risks and the management and the approach of development of shale gas there is also a discussion going on about sort of the economic contours of what is required to be able to get people to invest in that resource development or something so because you see first of all it will be important at the start to identify the reserve the dimension of reserve the location of reserve we'll have to take into account some differences also if you as in terms of density of population and so on we will associate also the counterpart of USGS then it will be important to assess the economic viability of project but I am convinced some member state and some actor will go in that direction and we see now a new evolution of things accordingly this is promising we should learn some lessons from US we should adapt that to our specificities and characteristics including regarding public acceptance and the importance in Europe of precautionary principle but this is opening a new opportunity and we have launched the ball and we would like now to test the things well recognizing that you are in Washington and you've come here perhaps for a reason I think the last question I would ask before we let you go is what can the US do to support this partnership that you've envisioned and given as Heather had said the prospect for a new leadership team in Europe as well what from your vast experience and your dedication to the energy sector are the key things that we need to be able to accomplish and how does the US live up to its end at that bargain I can say first of all we have now a transatlantic governance for energy well in place in particular with a transatlantic energy council chair by the secretary of state but also with the US secretary for energy commissioners and high representative it has been possible already to well address some key issues including technologies and at the same time we have now developed many convergences regarding both competitiveness climate issues sustainability and in particular energy security we have a common will to address the challenge in terms of operational actions of course we will be successful only if we will also associate all of the key players operators, regulators TSU etc and if we go in that direction I am convinced this will be profitable for all at all level for our economies in US as well as in Europe but also profitable for our societies and this is fundamental thank you very much thank you very much