The High Level Group (HLG) on Competitiveness, Energy and Environment

The HLG on Competitiveness, Energy and Environment was proposed by the European Commission’s Communication on the EU Industrial Policy in October 2005 and became operational in February 2006. The mandate of the group, which lasts 2 years, is to advise policy makers at EU and national level about cross-sectoral issues related to industrial, environmental and energy policy, with particular emphasis on this last sector. The Group, composed of EU Commissioners, representatives of the European Parliament, Member States and the civil society (industry, consumers, environmentalists, etc) has the important task to come out with proposals to make the EU at the same time more competitive, cleaner and cleverer in its energy management. UEAPME’s representative in the HLG as from June 2006 is Mr. Alberto CONTE, Deputy Director of Apimilano, the local federation of our Italian full member CONFAPI.

In order to ensure a quick communication flow between UEAPME and Mr. Conte, beginning of October 2006 UEAPME set up an Ad Hoc Working Group with our national experts. Members belong to different UEAPME’s Committees such as Environment, Research and development and Economic and fiscal affairs.

The first mandate of the group ended with a Conference on 27th November 2007 that presented the main results of the HLG. In view of the work done by the High Level Group over 2006, the energy package approved by the European Commission early 2007 and the Communication on Post-Kyoto, two new Ad Hoc WG have been created on “International action on Climate Change” and on “Environmental industries and energy services”.

Please find below the links to the reports adopted by the HLG:

• 8 November 2007: "Addressing both international action on climate change and better regulation"

• 11 June 2007: “Ensuring future sustainability and competitiveness of European enterprises in a carbon and resource constrained world”

• 27 February 2007: "Contributing to an integrated approach on competitiveness, energy and the environment policies - Helping energy intensive industries adapt to the energy and climate change challenges; incentives, innovation and technology policies"

• 30 October 2006: "Contributing to an integrated approach on competitiveness, energy and the environment policies - Long term energy futures and investment in power generation and energy efficiency"

• 2 June 2006: "Contributing to an integrated approach on competitiveness, energy and the environment policies - Functioning of the energy market, access to energy , energy efficiency and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme"

 For further information, please consult the website of the European Commission/DG Enterprise on the HLG.