Message From IENE’s Chairman on the Occasion of the Joint IENE/ROEC Conference Held in Bucharest on Wednesday, October 16.

The following is the message sent to all IENE Members by IENE’s Chairman, Mr. Costis Stambolis

"Dear Members,

I have just returned to Athens from Bucharest where yesterday ( 16/10) our Institute, jointly with the Romania Energy Centre (ROEC), organized a half day conference on "Energy Transition in South East Europe-Policy & Investment Challenges". The conference proved a big success judging from the more than 70 participants and a well chosen group of 12 high caliber speakers and panelists who were there. Between them the speakers covered the burning energy issues of the region focusing on Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, the West Balkans and with useful input from the European Commission and from Denmark.

The topics covered in this highly focused colloquim included policy and regulatory issues,Renewable Energy Sources,district heating,the role of nuclear energy,small scale LNG applications in Romania and the broader Danube region,improving energy efficiency across SE Europe and the socio economic impact from pursued Energy Transition policies in Romania,Greece and the SEE area. An assessment of anticipated medium and long term investments in the energy sector for both Greece and Romania was also contributed. The audience came from almost all major energy companies and organizations in Romania with a number of media representatives also attending.

From IENE's side apart from myself our head of research Mr. Dimitris Mezartasoglou and IENE's partner and chairman of the Institute's Energy Efficiency committee Mr. Costas Theofylaktos participated as speakers, while IENE's founding partner and past chairman Dr. John Desypris chaired the first session of the conference. Evgenia Gusilov, ROEC's director, and the driving force of the conference chaired the second session and contributed one of the keynote presentations. Thanks to Eugenia and the excellent cooperation that myself and other colleagues at IENE have established with ROEC over the years it became possible to organise one more highly informative and useful event in Bucharest. I should also note that ENEL Green Power was the event's main supporter with the European Commission Representative Office in Bucharest contributing the conference facilities. Without their help it would have been difficult to convene and organise such a demanding event.

Finally, I should point out that this was the third joint event which IENE organised with ROEC in Bucharest over the last 5 years. The first event was the 2nd IENE Workshop on the "The Nuclear Option for SE Europe" in May 2015, while in October 2017 the two independent organisations joined forces to organise a presentation of IENE's seminal publication, "The SEE Energy Outlook 2016/2017" in the Bucharest University of Economic Studies. Hence, I wish to express a big thank you to ROEC and Evgenia Gusilov in particular for the excellent cooperation and for her valuable and unreserved support to the Institute’s various activities and initiatives. In this context I should mention that Evgenia has been an invited speaker to a number of IENE events, including the SEE Energy Dialogue, the annual Energy & Development conference and lately the Vienna Energy Transition Forum which was held in Vienna last June.

A detailed announcement of the "Energy Transition Conference" in Bucharest will shortly follow and will be posted on IENE's website together with the conference papers.

Kindest regards to all,

Costis Stambolis

Chairman and Executive Director, IENE”