In October 2004, local and regional energy actors from throughout Europe will once again meet in Brussels to discuss issues relating to energy efficiency, renewable energy and sustainable transport at the local and regional level.
The themes of sustainable energy and transport, which lie at the heart of the European Union's policies aiming at a better future for its citizens in a cleaner and safer environment, will be presented and developed under the over-arching and historical advent of the European Union of Twenty-Five Member States. Therefore special attention will be given to the needs and problems confronting local actors in the new Member States, which are often different both in scale and nature to those of agencies and other operators in the 'Fifteen'.
The other critical context of the conference will be valorisation: in other words the whole series of complex interactions and communication that must be focused on if sustainability goals in such a vast and disparate area as the new EU are to be brought within reach of achievement.
We look forward to your participation in this event, in Brussels or via the internet broadcast.
Further information, registration and draft programme
In May 2004, the European Commission Energy & Transport DG was reorganised.
Directorate D: New Sources of Energy, Demand Management and Sustainable Development has a new Director, Mr Alfonso González Finat, with Mr Gonzalo Molina Igartua as Adviser. The Unit responsible for ManagEnergy, Promotion and Dissemination of Programme Results, is now headed by Mr Patrick Lambert. Former Director, Mr Günther Hanreich, is now Director of Directorate B: Trans-European Networks Energy & Transport
Download Organisation Chart 
(81 Kb PDF) 
(1199 Kb PDF)
Mr Alfonso González Finat
Director for Directorate D: New Sources of Energy, Demand Management and Sustainable Development
Mr González Finat joined the Commission in October 1988 after having occupied executive posts with the industry in ENTURSA and IBERSWISS for several years. He has also worked for the Ministry of Transport, Telecommunication and Tourism, the Ministry of Public Works and Country Planning in Spain in programme evaluation and economic analysis. Most of his time in the Commission he has worked on Networks and Transport Infrastructure – Transeuropean networks projects, although he has also been in charge of sustainable development for energy and transport and Galileo. He has recently taken up his post as Director responsible for new and renewable sources of energy, demand management & sustainable development.
Mr Patrick Lambert
Head of Unit D3 for Promotion and Dissemination of Programme Results, Directorate D
Patrick joined the Commission in 1984 having worked in industry (British Gas) for 10 years. He has spent most of his time in the Commission on energy matters, including natural gas, energy policy and co-ordination, and international relations. He returns now to the sustainable energy field having spent 4 years as head of unit for renewables and energy saving, covering policy and programmes, in the late nineties. He is looking forward very much to his new role, using his wide-ranging experience across the energy policy field, to give a cutting edge to the dissemination of the Community's energy programmes, a link in the chain which has at times been under-done in the past. The new unit will also co-ordinate the Intelligent Energy - Europe programme as well as act as the inter-face with the Intelligent Energy Executive Agency once this is up and running in the near future.
There are no other major changes in the Directorate D staffing. The other Units are as follows:
Unit D1 for Regulatory Policy; Promotion of New Energy Sources and Demand Management which continues to be led by Mr Luc Werring
Mr Karl Kellner will continue leading Unit D2, with a slightly changed name of unit: Unit for Management of RTD Energy Programmes.
Mrs Eleni Kopanezou will continue leading Unit D4 for Clean Transport and Sustainable Development
In recognition of the accession of 10 new Member States to the European Union and the increased need for information in additional languages, the ManagEnergy homepage (www.managenergy.net) was translated into French (Français) and German (
Deutsch), and the Internet Broadcasts site (www.managenergy.tv) has been translated into French (Français), German (Deutsch) and Dutch (
Nederlands). A number of Internet Broadcasts are in more than one European language.
As indicated in May's newsletter, an introduction to ManagEnergy is in the process of being translated into all 20 European Languages. At the time this newsletter was produced, the introduction was available in the following languages (click on an image to view the introduction):
These can also be accessed from the About ManagEnergy page and by clicking on the language at the top of every page of this site.
In addition the search facilities for Case Studies, Legislation and other documents have been extended to allow you to search by language.
Although most of the information provided by ManagEnergy is in English, we hope that the introduction of language options will increase the usability of the ManagEnergy sites.
Don't forget you can use the ManagEnergy Partner Search facility to identify potential partners for your Intelligent Energy - Europe and FP6 projects. Further information about these programmes can be found in the Programmes and Funds section of this site.
The Sixth meeting of the ManagEnergy Reflection Group took place in Dublin on 3 & 4 May, at the kind invitation of the City of Dublin Energy Management Agency (CODEMA), of which the group's Chairman, Gerry Wardell, is Director. The meeting was organised to coincide with a programme of special public events in the Irish capital to celebrate the 1st of May accession to the Union of the Ten New Central European Member States.
In addition to its regular first meeting of 2004 as advisory body to the Commission on local energy and transport action, the group was informally addressed by the Irish Minister of State for European Affairs, Dick Roche TD. This was followed by an informal discussion on European communication issues. The report of the meeting is now available on the Reflection Group page of this site:
www.managenergy.net/refgrp.html
Local sustainable energy policies: Working in synergy with the private sector? - 22-23 April 2004, Martigny
Co-Opet Conference on: Energy Issues in Transport - 25 & 26 May 2004, Brussels
Sixth Framework Programme Sustainable Energy Systems Information Day - 22 June 2004, Brussels
European Conference of Municipal Energy Managers - 1-2 July 04, Stuttgart
Local Cultural Context for New Energy Technologies - 6 July 2004, Genova