New EU Commissioners reaffirm strong partnership with SEforALL

Brussels, 19 February 2015 – The European Union and the Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) initiative have reaffirmed their strong partnership following the appointment of the new European Commission (EC) members late last year. The European Union is one of SEforALL’s biggest collaborators, with the Commission aiming to spend more than EUR 3 billion over the next seven years to support sustainable energy projects – funding that is expected to leverage investments of between EUR 15 billion and EUR 30 billion. The European Union is also a major donor supporting SEforALL’s Global Facilitation Team. Kandeh Yumkella, SEforALL’s Chief Executive Officer and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, led an SEforALL delegation on 17 February to meet Neven Mimica, Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, and Miguel Arias Cañete, Commissioner for Climate Change and Energy. Both Commissioners confirmed the EC’s continued commitment to work closely with SEforALL to fight energy poverty and climate change. Discussions with senior EC officials focused on how to drive this cooperation further, including plans to encourage thousands of municipalities to join SEforALL’s Global Energy Efficiency Accelerator Platform by linking through Europe’s Covenant of Mayors and extending that network to towns and cities around the world. Commissioner Mimica accepted an invitation to join SEforALL’s Advisory Board, following his predecessor at the European Commission, Andris Piebalgs. “I really would like to be very active in the SEforALL initiative,” he said. “Energy and access to energy are not only a priority sector but, more broadly, a fight against inequality.” While in Brussels, Yumkella also delivered two keynote speeches to audiences of think tanks, diplomats, international officials and civil society: the Lisbon Council’s 2015 Jean Jacques Rousseau Lecture on “How efficiency will drive growth, create jobs and spread wellbeing throughout society,” and a presentation on “Sustainable Energy for All and the post-2015 development agenda” for the UN Association in Belgium, the UN Regional Information Centre and the Royal Institute for International Relations.