MBRmay 2017_PG ALL LR

Malta Business Review
ENERGY/TRANSPORT
ENERGY/TRANSPORT
Malta Business Review
Delivering secure, sustainable
and competitive energy to EU
citizens and industry
The Editor interviews Dirk Beckers, INEA Executive Director (EC), who explained he was content that the new INEA is now up and
running following several months of cost-benefit study, consultations and other preparatory work. In this exclusive interview
with MBR, Mr Beckers told us that out of the six EU Executive Agencies, INEA will manage the biggest MFF 2014-2020 budget -
around €37 billion.
Background
The Innovation and Networks Executive
Agency (INEA) was officially inaugurated
March 7th, 2014, with an event to recognise
its new mandate and the ongoing successes
in project implementation. European
Commission Vice-Presidents Siim Kallas
(Transport) and Neelie Kroes (Digital Agenda)
as well as Robert-Jan Smits (Director-General
of DG RTD), Mat-thias Ruete (Director-General
of DG MOVE and Chairman of INEA’s Steering
Commit-tee), Fabrizio Barbaso (Deputy
Director-General of DG ENER), and Dirk
Beckers (INEA Executive Director) delivered
short welcome addresses to commemorate
the new Agency, which is responsible for
implementing parts of the Connecting Europe
Facility and Horizon 2020 programmes on
behalf of the Commission.
Commission Vice-President Siim Kallas,
responsible for transport, stated: "I am
confident that INEA will be the ideal
environment to find and promote synergies
so that Europe’s energy, transport and ICT
networks can be successfully developed
together in the years ahead. […] As
policymakers, we have planned a vision for
the future. It will be INEA that will make it
hap-pen.”
Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes
echoed Mr Kallas’ comments, adding: “This
is not just about handling this or that project,
or managing this or that call for proposals.
It is about investing in our future economy
and in our future society through the power
of digital tools. I know that INEA is up to the
challenge.”
MBR: Can you tell us what is the key role of
NEA?
DB: Our key role will continue to be bridging
the gap between policy and implementation,
covering the whole lifecycle of the projects
we manage. It is INEA’s firm intention to live
up to the expectation of the Commission that
the Agency will continue to perform well. May
we all enjoy many years of successful project
implementation, effective programmes and a
very fruitful partnership.
Accountant
Milena Chakarova
Department C
CEF
Andreas Boschen
C1 TRANSPORT
Baltic Sea (DE, DK, SE, FI, EE, LV, LT,
PL), Austria + MoS, ERTMS
Morten Jensen (acting)
C2 TRANSPORT
East Mediterranean, Black Sea, SE
Europe (CZ, SK, SI, HU, HR, RO, BG,
EL, IT, MT, CY) + Marco Polo, ATM
Cristóbal
Millan de la Lastra
C3 TRANSPORT
West Mediterranean, Atlantic (PT,
ES, FR, BE, NL, LU, UK, IE) + ITS, RIS,
Innovation
Christian Faure
C4 ENERGY & ICT
Andreas Boschen (acting)
We hope that with our grant the
technology is really improved
MBR: Could you perhaps give some
examples of projects that are potentially
attractive to private investment with the
help of FC; the kind of projects that can be
used for CEF?
DB: This is a co-ordination, however this will
bring feedback about the projects, based
on the outcome of the projects. We give
feedback to the European Commission on
where we think that they should be changing
their policy based on the outcome we get
on the feedback that we get from Member
States, from beneficiaries that say yes the
Director
Dirk Beckers
Department H
Horizon
2020
Alan Haigh
H1 Energy Research
Robert Goodchild
H2 Transport Research
Marcel Rommerts
Assistant
Montserrat Madern Carretero
MoS - Motorways of the Sea
ERTMS - European Rail Traffic Management System
ITS - Intelligent Transport Systems
RIS - River Information Services
ATM - Air Traffic Management
Internal Control Manager
Ann Vanroelen
Department R
Programme
Support &
Resources
Paloma Aba Garrote
R1
Programme Support,
Coordination &
Communication
Marc Vanderhaegen
R2 Administrative,
Finance, Legal &
Financial Management
Philippe Stalins
R3 Operational Finance
Joachim Ball
R4
Human Resources, IT
& Logistics
Maria Novak
Commission should be more working, or
the priority should be changing. We give
that feedback to the Commission, but then
I would say, as well that the major role we
have and which I’m quite proud to say is that,
we achieved good results in which is also
the reason why the Commission decided
to extend the mandate of our agency. We
have an important role to play towards our
beneficiaries; meaning that we make sure,
since we make all the payments and so on,
to make it an important role to ensure that
the payment delays are short as possible,
and that we even improve them, because
our performance on payment delays must
be extremely short. We make sure that
whenever we get amendments requests from
beneficiaries that they are dealt with quickly.
In fact we are trying to improve permanently
the service to the beneficiaries so that they
feel that their projects have been taken care
of. The feedback from the beneficiaries and
from the Commission services shows that we
are on the right track. The track record is still
improving after this year so I think it’s going
quite well.
MBR: In what ways will INEA be the ideal
environment to find and promote synergies
so that Europe’s energy transport in our
City networks are connected and how can
be these successfully developed together in
the years?
DB: The synergy is something that we
started a while ago and something that we
are working on. We have one thing which is
quite interesting since we have as well a rise in
2020, which is the research part in which we
try to evaluate. We have someone else taking
care of Horizon 2020. This project is starting
to organise meetings because from Horizon
2020 we get to see the results of the research
project and we try to see where this can fit
with the infrastructure, and where it can
lead to projects. There is already an internal
consensus within the agency and we are trying
to see how we can make suggestions to the
Commission. We reflect and consult internally
on how we can give the best feedback to the
commission as well and how we can achieve
synergies between these programs.
Examples from transport area
1. We need good electric batteries and good
charging infrastructure so of course there’s
a lot of research. Researching institutions
normally finish at the level of proto-type
and they hand it over to the operators and
they want to start with a first real market
scale experience and they come in and we
give them a grant to take the risk to run a
real trial in real market conditions to see
how they are accepting technology, the
interconnectors. We hope that with our
grant the technology is really improved
established and the real market uptake can
take place without public market and the
markets take it over.
2. Traffic management: The European union
has also invested a lot in research to make
the sky safer and more environment
friendly and so on. We are now giving
money to deploy at airports, area traffic
control centres.
3. ITS Connected Cars: The cars of the future
discussed with the role of infrastructure
of how they communicate and how data
will be exchanged between individual cars
and infrastructure has a lot of research but
then you have to try it. This combines and
goes together with our colleagues from our
research site. Hopefully the markets and
the manufactures and the road operators
Martin Vella interviewing Mr Dirk Beckers, Director at INEA (Innovation & Networks Executive
Agency and Mr Jean-Eric Paquet, Deputy Secretary-General of the European Commission
will say that the technology is now mature
and proven and safe.
That’s one type of synergy. We also use
another type of synergy on the procedures
that we use between the different programs
so that when we carry out a certain approach,
which is being fruitful and we see the
outcome is doing well, we try to syndicate it
with the other programs as well. First with
the CEF between transport energy/ICT, we try
to have common grounds, as sometimes we
have some common beneficiaries that they
might get the same process.
MBR: How is INEA best place to understand
the market needs and how is it also
positioned with the EU policy framework to
help and deliver these objectives?
DB: Since we are managing now all these
projects, we have the information from the
research files and congolmerate. In particular
on CEF we have an analytical basis, we get
an update for all the projects, by the end of
March. Every year we get an update from
Commission Directorate-Generals, which is
the status report for all the projects and so
this gives us information on all the projects on
where they are, where problems ly; positive
and negative things.
It allows us as well to give them on that basis,
positive feedback to the commission; we give
them a general view of what’s happening,
we give them as well an overview per
member states so that they can see that its
going good in Malta, Belgium, Italy, wherever
and we give them feedback on the projects,
on the idea of projects.
The idea then, is to give them feedback on
maybe where they should change their
procedures, so I would say that since we get
all the input from the projects, we think we
are very well placed to give this qualitative
feedback to the commission to keep them
updated on what’s happening. MBR
The importance of INEA was
key as the Agency is best placed
to understand the market needs
and whether the EU policies
are helping to deliver the EU
objectives
About INEA
INEA is the successor of the Trans-European Transport
Network Executive Agency (TEN-T EA), which was created by
the European Commission in 2006 to manage the technical
and fi-nancial implementation of its TEN-T programme
supporting European transport infrastructure projects.
INEA officially started its activities on 1 January 2014 in order
to implement the following EU programmes:
• Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) – transport, energy and
digital
• Parts of Horizon 2020 – Smart, green, and integrated
transport + Secure, clean and efficient energy
• Legacy programmes - TEN-T and Marco Polo (2007-2013)
INEA’s main objective is to increase the efficiency of the technical
and financial management of the programmes it manages.
Mr Dirk Beckers, Director at INEA
20 21
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