PESCARA, Italy – The Abruzzo region, Italy’s emerging tourist destination, is no stranger to crisis. An earthquake rocked L'Aquila in central Italy in 2009 and now the region starts to feel the effects of the European economic crisis. But riding the train across the mountainous countryside one notices wind farms and the prospects of economic development.
Eco-innovation could be part of the recovery from the crisis, Électricité de France (EDF) Senior Vice-President for Sustainable Development Claude Nahon told New Europe in Pescara on 21 September at the start of an Assembly of the European Regions (AER) Crisis Summit. She said EDF believes that to find a solution it has to find a way to work locally. “We believe we can play a role in eco-innovation because we have huge R&D centres and with these R&D centres we need to connect to a lot of local issues to develop a sort of eco-system in which you can find innovation,” she said. “You need to connect to the people outside the company who are bringing new ideas, new business models and it can only be done locally,” Nahon said.
EDF is investing a lot in renewables. But Nahon stressed that the French company “has to build a mix in energy and this mix is very local. You have to be aware what kind of energy you can use in a place and you need to really have a global view what are the resources you can use and how to use them,” she said.
The EDF executive also called for inventing in new cost-effective models for energy efficiency. “It doesn’t mean that energy efficiency has to be very expensive. People cannot afford expensive energy. It is a mainly political issue. We believe there has to be new funding models for energy efficiency,” Nahon said. “You need really to have a global view on how you green the economy and have an economy which is much more able to deal with the limit of the planet and with solidarity,” she said.
Italian MEP Erminia Mazzoni told New Europe in Pescara that Europe risks being divided. Abruzzo is a symbolic starting point, she said. “This two-day meeting could be a first important step to rethink processes inside the European Union in this particular moment of crisis. The global financial crisis struck all of Europe and produced a bad effect on practise of the principle of solidarity,” the MEP said, adding that the crisis is the right moment to go beyond and to think of a political European Union made up by its citizens. “A Europe made up made up by citizens is an entity in which regions must play central role. So I think we can start from here – from Abruzzo – to re-launch the identity and the role of regions,” Mazzoni said.
The Italian MEP said innovation cannot be excluded. “The environmental protection is one of the fundamental goals we have to put on our agenda because destroying the environment means destroying earth, destroying life capability and destroying social relationships. And all these elements correspond to costs,” she said. “That it is one of the most important calls on the agenda for Europe 20-20-20.”
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