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This event has now taken place – a replay is available below.
Dr. Markus Richter
State Secretary and Federal Government Commissioner for Information Technology
German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community
Johannes Hahn
European Commissioner for Budget and Administration
Prof. Dr. Boris Otto
Member of the Interim Management Team and acting Interim CTO of the GAIA-X AISBL (under incorporation)
European Commission President von der Leyen’s biggest policy priority is the transition to a greener economy. She has described her European Green Deal proposal as Europe’s growth strategy. The Commission’s overarching climate ambition is to become the first climate neutral continent by 2050. To reach this goal, the European Commission is proposing a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (compared to 1990) by 2030. The European Parliament has even called for a 60% reduction.
While some argued at the outset of the current pandemic that the European Green Deal should be watered down, the EU quickly agreed that the economic recovery and the green transition must go hand-in-hand. As a consequence, there is a real green dimension to the agreed recovery package, as well as to the EU’s new 7-year financial framework agreement. These agreements now need to be implemented and realised on the ground, at the same time as the European Green Deal becomes more and more concrete. The European Green Deal and the unprecedented efforts to ensure a sustainable recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic provide an opportunity for meaningful public action on air quality and other dimensions of environmental policy. If this “window of opportunity” is missed, air pollution will continue unabated to cause thousands of premature deaths and billions in economic damage. The European Commission has acknowledged this and will soon present its proposals for the way forward on air, water and soil.
A public consultation on the European Commission’s Zero Pollution Action Plan concluded earlier this year. The European Commission is now analysing the feedback received from the various stakeholder groups. It aims to publish the new Action Plan on 18 May 2021. This event will provide an opportunity to discuss the role of innovation and green technology moving forward, what Europe’s green industrial champions require in order to make a substantial contribution to the Zero Pollution Action Plan, and how business, civil society and policymakers can work together on its implementation.
Dr. Markus Richter
State Secretary and Federal Government Commissioner for Information Technology
German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community
Johannes Hahn
European Commissioner for Budget and Administration
Prof. Dr. Boris Otto
Member of the Interim Management Team and acting Interim CTO of the GAIA-X AISBL (under incorporation)
Virginijus Sinkevičius, Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Commissioner, European Commission Virginijus Sinkevičius is the European commissioner for the environment, oceans and fisheries, a position he has held since December 2019. Previously, Sinkevičius was minister of economy in Lithuania from 2017 to 2019. Prior to that, Sinkevičius was a member of the Lithuanian Parliament since October 2016 where he headed the committee of economy. Before that, he was a team lead for regulatory affairs at Invest Lithuania. Sinkevičius holds a BA in international relations from Aberystwyth University, U.K., and a Master’s degree in European international affairs from Maastricht University, Netherlands.
Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries
European Commission
Zakia Khattabi, Minister of Climate, Environment, Sustainable Development and Green Deal, Belgian Federal Government More information available shortly.
Minister of Climate, Environment, Sustainable Development and Green Deal
Federal Government of Belgium
Bertrand Camus, CEO, Suez He joined SUEZ environnement in 1994 as a project manager for the commercial development of major international public-private partnerships (PPPs), notably in Budapest and Casablanca (the largest water and electricity concession in the world).
In the early 2000s, he spent several years developing the business in Southeast Asia and became Executive Vice President of Aguas Argentinas, SUEZ’s local brand in Argentina.
From 2008 to 2015 he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of SUEZ in North America, in charge of all SUEZ activities in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
He returned to France in September 2015, as Chief Executive Officer of Eau France (formerly Lyonnaise des Eaux) and Executive Vice President of the SUEZ Group’s European Water Division. During that time he was also President of the French Federation of Water Companies (FP2E).
From March 2018 to May 2019, Bertrand Camus held the position of Executive Vice President of the SUEZ Group in charge of Africa, Middle East, India, Asia and Pacific. He was appointed to his current position as Chief Executive Officer of SUEZ on 14 May 2019.
Bertrand Camus holds a degree in civil engineering from the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées.
CEO
Suez
Lídia Pereira MEP Born in 1991 and raised in Coimbra (Portugal). Graduate in Economics at the University of Coimbra and holding a Master degree in European Economic Studies from the College of Europe (Bruges, Belgium). During her academic studies, Lídia had the opportunity to take part in the Erasmus programme, studying in Prague (Czech Republic) for one semester. Additionally, she was always involved and assumed several responsibilities in the Student Association and University/College bodies. After a traineeship at the European Investment Bank, Lidia became a consultant in the financial sector.
Later on, she became politically active in JSD, the youth organization of the Partido Social Democrata (PSD, Portugal). In May 2016, Lidia has been appointed International Secretary of JSD’s Board (2016-2018). Since 2018, she served as President of the Youth of the European People’s Party (YEPP).
Lídia Pereira was invited by the PSD to run in the last European elections, as second on the list. Elected to the European Parliament in 2019, she has since sat on the Committees on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and on the Delegations for relations with the People’s Republic of China and relations with the United States. She was recently elected to the standing Committee on Tax Affairs, in which she is the coordinator of the EPP group and she is also enrolled on the special subcommittee on the fight against cancer.
Member
European Parliament
Roberto Grasso, Deputy General Counsel, Columbia Sportswear Roberto is Columbia Sportswear Company’s Deputy General Counsel. He joined the company as Director of Legal Affairs EMEA in 2018.
Prior to joining Columbia, Roberto spent 10 years as an attorney with WilmerHale in Brussels and Washington DC, 2 years with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Rome, and 1 year with Cleary Gottlieb in Rome. He also interned with the Legal Services of the Italian Antitrust Authority and the European Commission. During this time, Roberto focused on European and international antitrust and EU law in several industries, including banking, aviation, oil and gas, information and communication technologies. He counselled clients both in the United States and Europe on legal issues including cartels and abuse of dominant positions, merger and EU State aid law, EU privacy and data protection, trade, international sanctions and EU export control, anti-dumping and anti-subsidies.
Roberto graduated summa cum laude from the University of Lecce in Italy and received Master of Law degrees from the University of Michigan and the University of Rome. In 2017, he was recognized as a leader in competition law in Europe in the first edition of Who’s Who Legal: Competition – Future Leaders. He is a board member of Competition Law & Policy Debate law journal. Roberto publishes articles on antitrust law and was visiting research fellow in the area of technology, IP and antitrust at O.P. Jindal Global University in New Delhi, India.
Deputy General Counsel
Columbia Sportswear
Sonja van Renssen, Managing Editor, Energy Monitor, New Statesman Group Sonja van Renssen is the managing editor of a new digital publication, Energy Monitor (energymonitor.ai), launched by the New Statesman Group in September 2020. Our goal is to tell data-driven stories about the global energy transition. Based in Brussels, Sonja is an experienced journalist and conference moderator who has previously written for leading energy and climate titles including S&P Global Platts and Nature Climate Change. She won a BBC-sponsored “Young Broadcaster of the Year Award” in 2005. Sonja has an MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College London and a BA in Biological Sciences from the University of Oxford. She grew up in the Netherlands, Japan and Taiwan, and speaks fluent English and Dutch, with a good command of German and French.
Managing Editor
Energy Monitor
Jocelyn Blériot, Executive Lead Institutions, Governments & Cities, Ellen MacArthur Foundation Jocelyn Blériot joined Ellen MacArthur in 2007, after 12 years spent in the media and publishing industry. Initially in charge of editorial matters at the Foundation (overseeing content development and messaging), he now fully focuses on leading the organisation’s institutional engagement and is responsible for its China programme. He notably represents the Foundation at the European Commission, and manages the relationship with governments and supra-national bodies such as the United Nations, the G7 Resource Alliance, the OECD or the World Economic Forum.
Executive Lead Institutions, Governments and Cities
Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Pascal Canfin MEP (Renew, France), Chair of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee Chair of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee
European Parliament
Zakia Khattabi, Minister of Climate, Environment, Sustainable Development and Green Deal Minister of Climate, Environment, Sustainable Development and Green Deal
European Commission
Roberto Grasso, Global Antitrust Counsel, Columbia Sportswear Company Global Antitrust Counsel
Columbia Sportswear Company
12:30 – 12:35
Welcome
Moderator: Sonja van Renssen, Managing Editor, Energy Monitor Sonja van Renssen is the managing editor of a new digital publication, Energy Monitor (energymonitor.ai), launched by the New Statesman Group in September 2020. Our goal is to tell data-driven stories about the global energy transition. Based in Brussels, Sonja is an experienced journalist and conference moderator who has previously written for leading energy and climate titles including S&P Global Platts and Nature Climate Change. She won a BBC-sponsored “Young Broadcaster of the Year Award” in 2005. Sonja has an MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College London and a BA in Biological Sciences from the University of Oxford. She grew up in the Netherlands, Japan and Taiwan, and speaks fluent English and Dutch, with a good command of German and French.
Moderator: Sonja van Renssen
Managing Editor, Energy Monitor
12:35 – 12:40
Keynote Presentation
Zakia Khattabi, Minister of Climate, Environment, Sustainable Development and Green Deal, Belgian Federal Government More information available shortly.
Zakia Khattabi*
Minister of Climate, Environment, Sustainable Development and Green Deal, Federal Government of Belgium
12:40 – 13:25
Panel Debate and Audience Q&A
Khalil Rouhana, Deputy Director General, DG CONNECT, European Commission Khalil Rouhana is the Deputy Director-General in DG CONNECT (Communications Networks, Content & Technology) since 1/12/2016. His responsibilities include the policies for digital economy and society and notably for research, innovation and industrial strategies, digital solutions for societal challenges and governments as well as cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. Before that he was Director for Digital Industry in DG CONNECT supporting the competitiveness of core digital sectors in Europe and the digitisation of all industrial sectors of the economy.
In his previous experiences in the Commission, he was the Director for Digital content & Cognitive systems, the Head of Unit in charge of ICT research and Innovation strategy, and started as a project officer in the ESPRIT programme in the areas of High Performance Computing and Future and Emerging technologies.
Before joining the Commission in 1992, he was for 5 years the director of an institute and school of engineering (Grande Ecole) in France. He started his career as research and development engineer for the aeronautics industry, worked for the French University in Beirut and created also his own engineering company. He has a master degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité (Supelec, France).
Khalil Rouhana
Deputy Director General, DG CONNECT, European Commission
Moderator: Sonja van Renssen, Managing Editor, Energy Monitor Sonja van Renssen is the managing editor of a new digital publication, Energy Monitor (energymonitor.ai), launched by the New Statesman Group in September 2020. Our goal is to tell data-driven stories about the global energy transition. Based in Brussels, Sonja is an experienced journalist and conference moderator who has previously written for leading energy and climate titles including S&P Global Platts and Nature Climate Change. She won a BBC-sponsored “Young Broadcaster of the Year Award” in 2005. Sonja has an MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College London and a BA in Biological Sciences from the University of Oxford. She grew up in the Netherlands, Japan and Taiwan, and speaks fluent English and Dutch, with a good command of German and French.
Moderator: Sonja van Renssen
Managing Editor, Energy Monitor
Virginijus Sinkevičius, European Commissioner, Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius is the European commissioner for the environment, oceans and fisheries, a position he has held since December 2019. Previously, Sinkevičius was minister of economy in Lithuania from 2017 to 2019. Prior to that, Sinkevičius was a member of the Lithuanian Parliament since October 2016 where he headed the committee of economy. Before that, he was a team lead for regulatory affairs at Invest Lithuania. Sinkevičius holds a BA in international relations from Aberystwyth University, U.K., and a Master’s degree in European international affairs from Maastricht University, Netherlands.
Virginijus Sinkevičius
European Commissioner, Environment, Oceans and Fisheries
Bertrand Camus, CEO, Suez He joined SUEZ environnement in 1994 as a project manager for the commercial development of major international public-private partnerships (PPPs), notably in Budapest and Casablanca (the largest water and electricity concession in the world).
In the early 2000s, he spent several years developing the business in Southeast Asia and became Executive Vice President of Aguas Argentinas, SUEZ’s local brand in Argentina.
From 2008 to 2015 he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of SUEZ in North America, in charge of all SUEZ activities in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
He returned to France in September 2015, as Chief Executive Officer of Eau France (formerly Lyonnaise des Eaux) and Executive Vice President of the SUEZ Group’s European Water Division. During that time he was also President of the French Federation of Water Companies (FP2E).
From March 2018 to May 2019, Bertrand Camus held the position of Executive Vice President of the SUEZ Group in charge of Africa, Middle East, India, Asia and Pacific. He was appointed to his current position as Chief Executive Officer of SUEZ on 14 May 2019.
Bertrand Camus holds a degree in civil engineering from the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées.
Bertrand Camus
CEO, Suez
Lídia Pereira MEP Born in 1991 and raised in Coimbra (Portugal). Graduate in Economics at the University of Coimbra and holding a Master degree in European Economic Studies from the College of Europe (Bruges, Belgium). During her academic studies, Lídia had the opportunity to take part in the Erasmus programme, studying in Prague (Czech Republic) for one semester. Additionally, she was always involved and assumed several responsibilities in the Student Association and University/College bodies. After a traineeship at the European Investment Bank, Lidia became a consultant in the financial sector.
Later on, she became politically active in JSD, the youth organization of the Partido Social Democrata (PSD, Portugal). In May 2016, Lidia has been appointed International Secretary of JSD’s Board (2016-2018). Since 2018, she served as President of the Youth of the European People’s Party (YEPP).
Lídia Pereira was invited by the PSD to run in the last European elections, as second on the list. Elected to the European Parliament in 2019, she has since sat on the Committees on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and on the Delegations for relations with the People’s Republic of China and relations with the United States. She was recently elected to the standing Committee on Tax Affairs, in which she is the coordinator of the EPP group and she is also enrolled on the special subcommittee on the fight against cancer.
Lídia Pereira
MEP
Jocelyn Blériot, Executive Lead Institutions, Governments & Cities, Ellen MacArthur Foundation Jocelyn Blériot joined Ellen MacArthur in 2007, after 12 years spent in the media and publishing industry. Initially in charge of editorial matters at the Foundation (overseeing content development and messaging), he now fully focuses on leading the organisation’s institutional engagement and is responsible for its China programme. He notably represents the Foundation at the European Commission, and manages the relationship with governments and supra-national bodies such as the United Nations, the G7 Resource Alliance, the OECD or the World Economic Forum.
Jocelyn Blériot
Executive Lead Institutions, Governments & Cities, Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Roberto Grasso, Deputy General Counsel, Columbia Sportswear Roberto is Columbia Sportswear Company’s Deputy General Counsel. He joined the company as Director of Legal Affairs EMEA in 2018.
Prior to joining Columbia, Roberto spent 10 years as an attorney with WilmerHale in Brussels and Washington DC, 2 years with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Rome, and 1 year with Cleary Gottlieb in Rome. He also interned with the Legal Services of the Italian Antitrust Authority and the European Commission. During this time, Roberto focused on European and international antitrust and EU law in several industries, including banking, aviation, oil and gas, information and communication technologies. He counselled clients both in the United States and Europe on legal issues including cartels and abuse of dominant positions, merger and EU State aid law, EU privacy and data protection, trade, international sanctions and EU export control, anti-dumping and anti-subsidies.
Roberto graduated summa cum laude from the University of Lecce in Italy and received Master of Law degrees from the University of Michigan and the University of Rome. In 2017, he was recognized as a leader in competition law in Europe in the first edition of Who’s Who Legal: Competition – Future Leaders. He is a board member of Competition Law & Policy Debate law journal. Roberto publishes articles on antitrust law and was visiting research fellow in the area of technology, IP and antitrust at O.P. Jindal Global University in New Delhi, India.
Roberto Grasso
Deputy General Counsel, Columbia Sportswear
13:25 – 13:30
Closing Remarks
Irena Bednarich, Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa , HPE Irena Bednarich is the Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. In this role, she leads HPE’s government relations and public policy team in the region and supports key public sector pursuits across EMEA.
Irena has wide-ranging experience in representing the tech sector at the European level; she currently holds several industry leadership roles including serving in her second term on the Board of DIGITALEUROPE, the EU-wide representation body for the digital and technology sectors.
After 14 years in Brussels, Irena has recently relocated to Dubai, UAE, to drive stronger alignment with the business in an important growth region. Irena is fluent in Italian, Slovenian, French, English and German and has working knowledge of Spanish.
Moderated by: Irena Bednarich
EMEA Director, Corporate Affairs, HPE
Prof. Dr. Boris Otto, Gaia-X Board of Directors Prof. Dr. Boris Otto holds the Chair for Industrial Information Management at TU Dortmund University and is the Executive Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering ISST in Dortmund. He received his doctorate degree from the University of Stuttgart and his post-doctoral qualification (“habilitation”) from the University of St. Gallen. His research focuses on industrial information management, corporate data management and business networks and ecosystems. He is Vice-President of the Board of Directors of the International Data Spaces (IDS) Association.
Prof. Dr. Boris Otto
Member of the Interim Management Team and acting Interim CTO of the GAIA-X AISBL (under incorporation)
*Pre-recorded intervention
Forum Europe Forum Europe events are where people and policy meet. We have been organising policy conferences in Brussels and around Europe since 1989. Our events provide unique insights from the people behind the policy and those seeking to influence it. Our expert team develop conference programmes with impact and provide first-class event logistics.Forum Europe is more than an event management and conference production specialist. With offices in Brussels and the UK, we operate across Europe and globally. Through our international arm, Forum Global, our events cover five continents, and engage policymakers and industry at national and regional levels around the world. Our mission is to drill down to the issues that matter, creating policy events that are ahead of the curve, facilitating frank and open debate on some of the most pressing issues facing Europe and the world today.
Suez SUEZ draws on the expertise it has been developing since the late 19th century to help people constantly improve their quality of life by protecting their health and supporting economic growth.
We work to provide access to essential environmental services for everyone. We supply high-quality water, suited to every type of use, and ensure the protection of this common good. We recover wastewater and waste to convert them into new resources.
Faced with demographic growth, climate change, and social and geographical inequalities, people are increasingly exposed to the consequences of the environmental emergency that is affecting our planet.
Every single day, SUEZ commits to preserving the fundamental elements of our environment – water, soil, and air – that ensure our future. At SUEZ, we invest in preserving and restoring natural capital, and in the future of biodiversity, both on land and at sea.
As a committed partner to local communities, industry players and citizens, SUEZ mobilises stakeholders to succeed in the environmental transition, developing circular business models and innovating to plan for tomorrow’s challenges.
Proud of their work and strengthened by their values, SUEZ’s teams based in regions throughout the world are shaping a sustainable environment, now.
This event will take place using Forum Europe’s virtual solution. For more details on our virtual solution, please visit forum-europe.com.
