EU sustainable development
policies & cooperation
Lucie Berger
Delegation of the European Union to GCC
7 May 2018

EU sustainable development policy
• 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development (SDGs)
• Following on Millenium
Development Goals
• Greater focus on means of
implementation, governance and
institutional framework
• Applies to all countries at all levels
of development, according to
capacities/circumstances
• 17 goals/5 directly energy related
• EU sustainable development
strategy
• Ensuring prosperity,
environmental protection and
social cohesion
• Climate change and clean energy,
sustainable transport, sustainable
consumption & production, or the
conservation and management of
natural resource

EU climate action
• Europe 2020 strategy (2007)
• 20/20/20 targets
• 2030 climate and energy framework (2014)
• 40% GHG / 27% RE / 27% EE
• Targets are translated into national ndicative or binding targets
• Investments form essential part: Investment Plan for Europe (EFSI)
• Climate action is an integral part of the EU's foreign policy agenda
• EU is the world's largest contributor of climate finance to developing
countries
• Bilateral cooperation/region2region

• Energy Union
• Making energy more secure, affordable and sustainable
• Facilitating cross border energy supply, and security supply in all EU MS
• 2020/2030/2050 Strategy
• Clean energy for all EU citizens
• Clean energies in 2015 attracted global investment of over 300 billion euros
• Clean energy is the growth sector of future.
• By mobilising up to 177 billion euros of public and private investment per year
from 2021, this package can generate up to a 1% increase in GDP over the
next decade and create 900,000 new jobs
EU energy policy

• Solar energy development
• UfM climate change expert group:
• Cooperation on climate-related policies and projects
• Main objective: development of joint projects, matching projects with
investors/donors/technology
• Cooperation among financial institutions including EU, UECD, `GCF, GEF, WB;
UfM regional climate finance committee
• Side event at UNFCCC: Climate Finance and Energy Transition (COP23 in
Bonn): presenting the results of the UfM climate finance study
Regional Cooperation: Union for the
Mediterranean

• EU-GCC dialogue on economic diversification in the context of climate
change
• Innovation, private sector development, clean energy including
interconnections
• EU-GCC clean energy network
• Region to region cooperation on clean technology, in particular RE/EE
• Large network of energy stakeholders in EU and GCC: enabling joint projects
and cooperation (starting from research)
• Workshops/trainings/seminars sharing technology, best practices,
standardisation (including in building efficiency)
Regional Cooperation: GCC

• largest research and innovation programme globally
• 80 bn EUR 2014-2020
• 2018-2020 work programme includes:
• Combining solar thermal electricity and desalination with specific focus on
GCC (10 M EUR); potential for research collaboration across the LAS region
• Other priories include circular economy (almost 1bn EUR), or specifically
climate action and energy
Research cooperation: Horizon 2020