German Economic Team participates at ECFR conference on climate and energy policy in the Western Balkans
On February 1st, the German Economic Team (GET) took part in a discussion organised by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) at the German Bundestag. The topic of the conference was the status and prospects for the implementation of the “Green Agenda for the Western Balkans”, which was adopted by the six countries of the Western Balkans region (WB6) at the Sofia Summit in 2020. The main objective of the “Green Agenda” is to achieve complete CO2 neutrality in the region by 2050, and the German Economic Team is supporting the WB6 countries in this endeavour.
The “Green Agenda” largely provides for “traditional” measures to achieve the emission reduction targets. These include the introduction of CO2 taxation elements, market-orientated regulations to promote renewable energies and measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The discussion focussed on the progress and challenges of implementation.
During the discussion, it was emphasised that many projects have already been launched in the region to promote renewable energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but that these are often still limited to smaller scales and need to be expanded further. Financing and infrastructure investments are the primary challenges here.
The German Economic Team (GET) played an important role in supporting the Western Balkans region in implementing the “Green Agenda”. In particular, GET contributed to the development of the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) for Kosovo.
Politicians from the Western Balkans region and representatives of German institutions such as ministries, think tanks and NGOs took part in the discussion in the Bundestag.
