Some weeks ago an invitation was send to you to attend a briefing session for Parliamentarians and PolicyMakers organized by the European Development Cooperation to 2020 (EDC2020) project. The annualbriefing will this time consider the Lisbon Treaty perspectives for better coherence between energy securityand development policies of the European Union and will be held in Brussels, Residence Palace onWednesday

9 February 2011

in the afternoon.We are pleased to convey the key note speaker will be Commissioner Andris Piebalgs (Development). Sincehe has been EU’s Commissioner with both energy and development portfolios we believe he knows besthow two major goals of EU external policy – energy security and development cooperation – overarch andwhether their implementation is more of coherence or conflict.In the years to come, the issue of energy policies will be very high on the public and political agenda onboth the national and European level. The role of developing countries in the area of energy scarcity iscomplex. Resource rich countries might benefit from increasing prices, but ‘the curse of the black gold’often results in human rights violations, civil strife, strengthening of authoritarian regimes and the lack ofcompetitiveness for other industrial and agricultural products. In resource poor countries the rising pricescan hamper growth figures, frustrate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, put strongpressure on utilization of forest and wood and in some cases lead to starvation. On the other hand, energyscarcity can and should lead to creative – local – alternative and renewable solutions.Therefore, we are dealing with one of the central challenges of the 21stcentury and the topic deservesample attention. The European Commission shares this opinion and has underscored this in a recent GreenPaper, which can be foundhere.We sincerely hope to see you in Brussels on

February 9, 2011

at this important encounter. For theprogramme and more information please clickhere.The briefing session is part of two consecutive events; on February 10 theFinal EDC2020 eventwillwelcome lead researchers from the EDC 2020 project to present the results of three years of research onthree game changers for European Development Cooperation: (i) New Actors, (ii) Energy and (iii) ClimateChange. You are most welcome to attend this event as well.

Places are limited.

To register we kindly ask you to send an email to[email protected]stating yourname and position, by

1 February 2011.

If you have any questions or need more information, pleasecontact

Ms. Frida van der Graaf

using the above address, or by phone: +31 (0)70 338 3285.Yours sincerely,