On 23 January 2008 the European Commission put forth an integrated proposal for Climate and Renewable Energy Action. The Commission’s ambitious objective to achieve an overall binding target for the European Union of 20% renewable energy by 2020 and a 10% minimum target for the market share of biofuels by 2020, has received much attention around the world.  At the ACG’s dinner discussion “Renewable Energy: A Boom for Germany and Europe?” Stephanie Schlegel, Fellow at Ecologic Institute, gave a presentation on the current policies and developments of renewable energy in the European Union.

The presentation focused on three questions:

• What role play renewables today in the EU?
• What does the future development look like?
• What are and have been the crucial questions in EU renewable policy/ politics?

The presentation of Stephanie Schlegel on European Policies was followed by the presentation of Christoph Stefes, Assistant Professor for Comparative European and Post-Soviet Studies at the University of Colorado at Denver, who presented the German case.

The dinner and discussion was organised by the Denver Eric M. Warburg Chapter of the American Council on Germany and took place at the Denver Country Club at March 17, 2008.

The presentation [pdf, 535 kb, english] is available for download.