Berlinhosted today the 27th meeting of the European Business Congress (EBC) Presiding Committee. The meeting was moderated by Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee.

According to the agenda, the meeting participants heard the reports by the Working Committees' Chairpersons and discussed a wide range of issues related to the EBC activities development. For instance, they approved the Blue Corridor project aimed at converting transport systems of OSCE countries to the NGV fue, including the expansion of the CNG filling stations network in European countries. The meeting stressed the necessity of expanding joint efforts on the NGV market development and the European NGV infrastructure creation.

The Presiding Committee approved the EBC budget for 2013 and defined the main topic of the next EBC General Meeting: LNG Development and Its Influence on European Gas Markets. The General Meeting is to take place on May 30–31 in Amsterdam.

The meeting considered the issue of changes in the EBC Presiding Committee membership. Gokhan Saygi, President of Schlumberger, Szymon Janicki, Regional Executive, GE Oil & Gas Eastern Europe, Russia & CIS, Hasan Mustafa, Managing Director of The Royal Bank of Scotland, and Morten Hultberg Buchgreitz, Executive Vice President of Dong Energy were elected new Members of the EBC Presiding Committee.

Moreover, the meeting participants seconded Verbundnetz Gas, KNAUF, Gazprom Gazoraspredeleniye, Yugorskremstroygaz, CISCO, Nord Stream AG  and Petrol joining EBC in the current year.

The sessions that took place as part of the EBC Presiding Committee meeting looked into the issues of the EU's Third Energy Package application. Alexey Miller mentioned that “implementation of the new European energy legislation may result in negative consequences for the European countries themselves. The liberalization model underlying the Third Energy Package, which the EU is going to apply to the gas market, in the end will have a negative impact on ultimate consumers. The Third Energy Package in its current state demotivates investors, distancing them from their investment governance. The projected reform creates a grave risk of the EU energy sector underinvestment.

Gazprom's activities always comply with the rules of the markets the Company works in. We are engaged in a dialogue with the EU on the application of the Third Energy Package and we offered them to grant a special status to transboundary pipelines through which gas is supplied to Europe from Russia. This will enable to respect the interests of Russian investors in the European fuel and energy sector in a proper way and, thus, contribute to increasing energy security in Europe.”

As part of EBC, working meetings took place among Alexey Miller and Dusan Bajatovic, Director General of Srbijagas, Dr. Johannes Teyssen, Chairman of the Board of Management of E.ON and Arunas Laurinaitis, President of Achemos Grupe.

Background

The European Business Congress (EBC) is an international, non-governmental and non-profit organization. EBC comprises 132 members from 24 OSCE member states including such prominent corporations and banks as Gazprom, Shell, ExxonMobil, Total, Wintershall, E.ON Ruhrgas, GDF SUEZ, Eni, Siemens, MAN Ferrostaal, Daimler, Alcatel, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, BNP Paribas, UBS, Societe Generale and others.

EBC's supreme body is the General Meeting. The 47-member Presiding Committee exercises general management. The EBC President is Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee. The 9-member Board of Executive Directors is responsible for executive management.

EBC deals with economic cooperation issues in Europe and brings forward proposals for debottlenecking and building a safe and favorable environment for entrepreneurial activities. EBC operates through seven Working Committees for: Energy; Industry and Construction; Law, Banking and Finance; Information and Communications; Ecology and Healthcare; Human Resources, Education and Science; Business Security.