European Investment Bank Group Forum 2025

📺 Video Information

**Channel:** EIB (European Investment Bank) on YouTube

**Published:** Streamed live on Mar 6, 2025

**Views:** 839 • **Duration:** 211:15

📝 Description

In an era of rapid technological change and evolving global dynamics, the EIB Group Forum provides a unique platform for dialogue. It brings together key stakeholders from policy, business, and finance to exchange views on investment priorities that support Europe's policies, including industry decarbonisation, artificial intelligence, the Capital Markets Union, security, housing and EU enlargement.

📹 Video Transcript

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[13:38] [Music] hello good morning everybody thank you for being back in the room I know some of you explored a little bit of Luxembourg last night as with yesterday maybe it will help if I walk over to this side so I encourage people to come over to this side of the room where I can see a whole expans of empty chairs so anybody coming in from these doors please please uh fill the the plentyful chairs over on this space because we have a really really great uh panel to start with this morning it's going to be

[14:10] about uh food BioLife Sciences something very close to my heart and we really want you to be uh engaged in that conversation as well so I would really encourage you to come over to the front seats because the lights are strong and if you're closer to us we can see you if you want to ask questions and I want to leave about 20 minutes of questions as well so welcome welcome back welcome to those of you joining online I know there's a fair number of you I asked for the statistics and so welcome to you as well it's going to be another packed day of dense conversations and we want your energy to come and join us on stage as

[14:45] well and this is of course the second day of the EI Group Forum 2025 and um we are going to wait of course for the president to arrive uh before I formally begin um but again just to remind you uh hopefully you've got the Wi-Fi code and also I've seen some interaction yesterday on LinkedIn on social media whatever your favorite form of social media is you can see the hashtag there it's # eiib Forum whilst

[15:18] we're waiting for the president to arrive you will have noticed this key figure standing to my right um she's the boss really she's the one on the floor uh pulling all the strings she and a fabulous organizational team so perhaps before the president arrives we could give them a round of applause because they have worked incredibly hard and I do hope the president will arrive quite soon otherwise I'll have to kind of do a little Irish dance or or a little bit of uh

[15:53] singing don't encourage me don't encourage me um you're giving R her ideas now no no no no I won't do that but I know that there is an Irish contingent here I've spoken to some of them and one of the thank you they lovely to meet you and we also have uh one on the upcoming panel as well in fact our first Speaker today unfortunately can't join us live um it will be Antonio Costa and he has sent us a video message so I am hoping before I have to prattle on about geopolitics or

[16:24] something else that um the president will arrive while we're waiting then okay I'm going to do something completely different I'm going to ask for the lights to be brought up uh in the audience so that I can see faces so these lights down please sorry technical team another round of applause for them okay we won't do that thank you thank you for joining us President we can't start without you that's for sure so now we can formally begin so it is of course the second day of the eiv group forum and we're going to use this day to engage with our fabulous speakers

[17:01] uh some really important uh topics of conversation with the aim that something will change and then all of you in the room and you all have such strong backgrounds and you all have the voice and the facility to make change and that is hopefully what will happen after these three events where we're going to uh discuss these crucial topics of our time as I just mentioned our first Speaker today couldn't join us in person unfortunately he's the only speaker who couldn't join us in person it's Antonio

[17:32] Costa president of the European Council but he did make a video and he's going to share his insights on the current geopolitical situation in this short video Dear ministers ladies and gentlemen thank you very much for your invitation to join you in Luxembourg Unfortunately today I need to stay in Brussels for a special European council meeting to show our support to Ukraine and to deliver on European Defense we

[18:07] need to look at today's geopolitical changes as a great opportunity to build the Europe of Defense with new resources new tools and new Investments the eiib will be important in this your role has been crucial in the digital energy and climate Transitions and now you will have a critical role also to play for our security and defense I would like to welcome the letter of by NAD calvinho to

[18:39] European leaders it is very important to further adapt The eib's Lending practices for more loans to the defense sector for making Europe's peace and security a new transversal goal of the EI public policies ensuring that excluded activities are more precisely defined and as limited as possible in scope to align with the new policy priority priorities of the European Union and of course in the manner we

[19:13] should safeguards the eib's operations and financial position I wish that this can be taken forward as quickly as possible by the EI board of directors as we build the Europe of Defense we must also push ahead with our competitiveness agenda and our strategic autonomy agenda especially on energy and in critic critical Technologies and

[19:45] infrastructures in fact we must sync them in parallel and increasing together European Defense European shared prosperity and European strategic autonomy they are about Europe's strength they are about our common future about our security quality of jobs and new opportunities for our regions they go hand in hand we all know of our Innovation Gap our productive Gap our

[20:17] investment Gap so the eib's latest investment report comes at the perfect time for making life easier for our enters without giving up on the green and inclusive transition for integrating integrating our Capital markets and mobilizing European savings for productive Investments and for making our single Market more Innovative

[20:49] 2025 needs to be the year when we deliver for security prosperity and sustainability for the current and the next Generations thank you very much thank you so much there to president Costa for giving us a video despite the lack of his availability today now we're going to jump right into our first topic which is Frontier

[21:21] Technologies this includes food biotech and Life Sciences as one of my panelists said to me just before we can't eat AI so even though it's very important we really do need food so we're going to talk about that it's something where Europe really has been a a player for so many many centuries and can still maintain a foothold uh to be competitively uh competitive globally to set the scene please welcome to the stage kirakos kakis who is vice president of the European Investment

[21:53] Bank [Applause] good morning to everyone Madame commissioner Zahara ladies and gentlemen esteemed colleagues distinguished guests good morning and and welcome to the second day of the E Group Forum 2025 it is a great honor for me to kick

[22:27] off the Panet of the today meeting and set up the stage on discussion on Frontier Technologies in the biotech life science and food sectors topics that impact all of us daily as a viip vice president of the European Investment Bank as somebody who is even here in Luxembourg coming from Cyprus I'm delighted to share with you some insights and pers perspectives on the current challenges and opportunities we face in these critical Industries and

[22:58] introduce the discussion Europe has long been a leader in by biotechnology life science and the food industry boosting a strong technological and production base and we have a lot to be proud of however with the current geopolitical context becoming more complicated by the day it is obvious that we are facing increasing competition from other Global players particularly the United States and China to secure Europe uh Europe's leadership

[23:32] in life science biotech and food Innovation we must mobilize both public and private investment especially for late stage scaleup activities that require substantial Capital the financing Gap remains a major challenge preventing Europe biotech firms agry Tech innovators and food Tech Pioneers from expanding and competing on on a global scale bridging this Gap is essential for turning Europe research Excellence into commercially viable World leading

[24:06] businesses at the same time we must ensure that regulation facilitates rather than hinders innovation in life science of food biotech regulatory complexity often delays breakthroughs and reaching the market streamlining approval processes without compromising safety and sustainability will be key to accelerating Europe's ability to bring Cutting Edge Solutions in health care Pharmaceuticals and sustainable food production to Consumers and

[24:41] patients another critical pillar is Talent these sectors are rapidly evolving driven by breakthroughs in advanced food Technologies bi technology and sustainable agriculture among others investing in specialized education and Workforce upskilling will ensure Europe remains in the Forefront of innovation equipping researchers and Industry professionals with the skills needed to drive the next wave on biotech and food Tech advancements at the European Investment Bank group we are committed to

[25:15] supporting these efforts we recognize the importance of fostering robust Financial ecosystem that can support the growth and development of these industries this includes providing funding for research and development supporting startups and growth companies and facilitating public companies and private uh public private Partnerships that can drive Innovation and resilience across uh the full supply

[25:45] chain with our AAA credit rating we are ideally positioned to offer comparative financing passing the cost advantages for to clients through attractive loan conditions at the E Group we back project benefits from both financial and Technical du diligence lowering investment risk and catalyzing additional funding for private and in institutional investors the European investment fund plays a key role in strengthening Europe's life science and health care

[26:18] ecosystem since its Inception the eif has committed over 5 billion euros to European technology transfer vure and growth Capital funds supporting more than 1,000 life science companies it's its strategic priorities include supporting new and emerging life science teams across the EU accelerating the translation of research into commercial Solutions expanding investments in un under Serv sectors such as advanced bi

[26:50] biom manufacturing angry Tech and food Innovations strengthening the position of established life science investors in Europe we're actively shaping Europe's Innovation landscape and remain fully committed to strengthen the ecosystem in conclusion while the challenges we face in the biotech life science and food sectors are significant they present equally great opportunities by working together we can build a more competitive Innovative and sustainable European ecosystem that can

[27:25] support Talent drives Investments and and ensures long-term Global Leadership the European Investment Bank group is committed to play a role in this endeavor and we look forward to collaborating with the industry investors and policy makers to build a high and brighter future for Europe I do look forward to hearing the views of our distinguished speakers here today thank you and I wish you all a productive and engaging discussions thanks a lot thank

[27:57] you so much kirakos and now I'm delighted to Welcome to the stage the European commissioner for startups research and Innovation Katarina Sahara vice president kakis distinguished guest it is an honor to introduce this panel that will discuss the Pres and the future of key strategic sectors such as

[28:30] food biotech and Life Sciences these industries are not only CR crucial for our well-being but also represent one of the most dynamic frontiers of innovation and economic growth at the heart of this transformation is Europe's thriving startup ecosystem which for the first time has been added to my portfolio responsibility together with research and

[29:01] Innovation over the past decade the number of European startups has increased with venture capital investment exceeded exceeding 90 billion EUR in 2023 Europe is now home to over 400 unicorns with more than 50 new ones emerging just last year over the past seven years we have also transformed the European Innovation Council into Europe's largest deep Tech investor supporting several of the

[29:35] European startups that have emerged since then half of them actually in life sciences in fact life scien startup are among the most promising with biotech and mettech companies attracting over 15 billion euros in funding in 2023 these figures underscore the importance of Life sect Life Sciences as a high impact high growth sector we can be proud of the European strengths that have led to these achievements first is uh our talent our

[30:12] biggest strength I believe our academic Excellence is Undisputed despite representing just 5% of the global population Europe is home to 42% of the world's top 100 life science science universities life science universities this intellectual Capital provides a strong foundation for breakthrough research and Innovation second we boost World leading Innovation hubs such as medicon Val in

[30:45] Denmark and Sweden home to over 1,100 companies employing more than 70,000 people in the bio Valley regions spaning France Germany and Switzerland this cups are driving next Generation advancements in BoTech and Pharma and our upon European strategic initiatives act as catalyzers in partnership with the eiib the European commission is closing Financial gaps for example through the European circular bio economy fund and

[31:17] the ESC fund but let's be frank Europe faces Fierce competition particularly from China and the United States with which are rapidly expanding their technology Investments and capabilities there are areas where we must improve to maintain our leadership and for this reason I will launch a startup and scale strategy in June I'll mention couple of uh problems they are well known but first European

[31:50] companies do not easily scale up in Europe as the vice president said we must address consistant funding gaps in scaling high-risk tech companies and I can inform you that we are working very intensively with eib and hopefully to introduce this scale fund uh uh really very fast with the private sector of course second Europe excellence in research is excellent in research but faces challenges in commercializing this

[32:22] discovery actually we are home of the largest and well-known uh program in the world for research and Innovation actually Horizon Europe and we are excellent in research and Innovation but uh we are really very slow unfortunately in commercializing this excellent uh uh Discovery and third is our fragmentation I think is actually to be frank the our biggest biggest problem in in scaling up and deployment on the market uh we are saying that we are

[32:53] single Market but actually in fact we are not we have regulatory barriers I spoke uh before we start this panel with excellent panelist that you are going to listen after me uh and this is this is really the biggest challenge and I can assure you that the commission is really very focused on delivering this simplification so we are working very intensively to introduce uh at the end of the year or in the beginning of the next the 28 regime and the European Innovation act uh aimed at streamlining regulations reducing bureaucrat uh bureaucratic

[33:27] delays and creating a more predictable Pathway to the market entry going back to the life sciences by this summer I'm committed to shape a forward-looking life science strategy that ensures Europe remain at the front front of this vital sector we will be launching the consultation soon and I really uh invite you to respond to it with your ideas and actually by the way now we are under public consultation for the startup and scale strategy so those of of you who have interest to respond

[34:01] the question please do it uh so I wish you a productive discussion uh I'm sure that uh there will be excellent ideas uh will come up from this um panel uh and I can assure you that we listen your problems and commission is very determined to deliver uh on the problems that are well known fin to fill the the gap of fin naal Gap but most uh most importantly on simplification make the lives of researchers innovators and business easier thanks so much for your

[34:38] attention thank you so much thank you so much commissioner well now it's great pleasure for me to invite my panel onto the stage so please welcome Clara Satler lus bretto who is head of Europe region for Phillips mads kard Thompson chief executive officer for Nova North dis fondan Marta Orga Val who is co-founder and chief strategy and sustainability officer at Green Light biosciences Mary McCarthy from sophin

[35:08] Nova where she's a partner and Eric dongier who is CEO of invest Europe so welcome to you all lovely to have you on stage with me now just off the back of what uh commissioner was just saying if I could see the audience so could the lights go down a tiny bit um could the lights go down a little tiny tiny little bit just so that I can see the audience our wonderful technical crew just a little bit please anyway thank you um hands up if if you know or you can shout out to

[35:40] me some of the 400 unicorns Europe has tell me one I can you 30 great okay good because I would say and the show of hands tells me we don't know them if we knew the unicorns in America everybody could say who they are we don't know those 400 and you are people who really might

[36:10] know anyway let's move on to our panel discussion okay so we're going to start setting the scene here with a little bit about all of you and I'm going to start actually with uh Clara um a little bit about your company Phillips it's not really known for Life Sciences or food so tell us a bit about the work that you do and uh how it is here in Europe yeah thank you so much evidently uh we I hope we would be known for our metch play and our impact on the healthc care sector and it's very funny for me here on the panel because I feel very old because

[36:45] I'm standing here for a long uh longstanding industry player so some of our challenges will actually be more classical um Phillips is an EU headquartered a very inovative and sustainable Health technology company uh and we hope that we can actually have an impact in addressing the European health uh systems challenges by The Innovation that we bring to the market um we invest nearly 10% of our Revenue in research and development and and do so at a higher share than most of our peers uh

[37:19] we we do we are one of the top five patent applicants in mettech and I hold a background in that area so it's always a particular pleasure to me um and we are also a leader in II patent applications in in healthcare so and um as I already said also sustainability for us is a major topic so we invest about 263 million EUR specifically in sustainable innovation in the last year um so we're looking at at projects in

[37:53] the area of circular Innovation uh to enable reuse uh the company is based in the in the einthoven area with our Research Center so not too far from here so I had to travel but not very far um for over 130 years uh we are part of a local ecosystem the rainport ecosystem with the Hightech campus in an Hoven um which is the uh the smartest square kilometer in the Netherlands with more than 160 companies and institutes some 11,000 researchers developers and entrepreneurs

[38:26] and we do share knowledge and research facilities uh test Labs with other campus companies we work in a very collaborative manner across Europe uh so I think that's why we I would love to say that we're proudly European um we work with uh with smmes in our value chain we work with the big university and research institutes and hospitals uh long-standing Partners if it be for example include the charite so I just came in from Berlin uh the University Medical Center in UT or the hosp Leon uh we work very closely with with a vibrant

[39:04] startup ecosystem both through financing ourselves uh as well as through coaching we're very actively encouraging startups uh to drive within our uh our einhoven ecosystem and we create spin-offs and uh and inward investment in health health Tech H and so so so we are actually on on that side of things hopefully helping to to carry through Innovation I think we will see as we move through the panel that evidently we are also fast facing our challenges in that environment so we we we should largely be able to provide

[39:40] our own funding uh we will see that I think some of this challenges are still very shared to some of the other other um co-panelists here well claraa I was listening to all of that and I was seeing you smile your way through it as if everything is perfect but we're here to dig into what's not perfect perfect so what are the challenges well I think um for me uh evidently you know we are innovating we are European right so so it is very natural for us to drive Innovation here in Europe and then still sometimes I find myself questioning

[40:14] whether I want to do that or I want to go somewhere else uh so evidently evidently I will I will use the example of um um of of the the the EU reg regulatory landscape that also for us is is very challenging um I will use the medical device regulation as that's the one closest to my heart um so with that piece of leg legislation the the average certification time has approximately

[40:47] doubled uh to 12 to 24 months for a metch device in the US it takes me six months uh to get the same device through certification creas costs have increased 260% since 2021 um and uh it it the the medical device regulation does not fully enable sustainable medical devices um it it leaves to countries talking about the single Market to handle reprocessing uh with some countries

[41:20] completely Banning it um and that clearly for us for example is one of the challenges where I find myself now questioning about where do I go to market first and while there was a clear answer that Europe was the place to go to market first because it was the fastest it was less least bureaucratic and now the answer is the us and we would go first in the US and that is something that pains me to see thank you Clara I'm going to just go through the panel and then we can interact a little bit more with your participation I hope so mads I would love you to talk to us a little bit about you know you have a long time working in the field of trying

[41:56] to accelerate and boost Innovation uh what is the best way to do that well first I worked more than 30 years in the fal industry hting up R&D and realized that the ecosystem was really functional European medicines agency Works uh I I would say the whole ecosystem up to Market approval works so coming four years ago to the N Foundation which grants out 1.5 1.6 billion euros annually within human health and planetary Health there are so many other dysfunctional areas and and just to highlight um a couple of the

[42:30] steps in the value chain that are dysfunctional we contributed to the Danish national life science strategy that was approved uh a few months ago and if you go all the way from basic research through to regulatory approval there are a number of reasons why uh European startups in more than 50% of the cases exit Europe and I'll mention just a couple of them first is the transition from basic research at universities into startup companies there we realized way too little what's

[43:01] happening in Denmark we've created a bioinnovation Institute with season experts in the field of spinning out companies and creating business models and patent strategies it has led to 120 new companies in Denmark over the last 5 years that probably would not have occurred so so the spin out phase and the help you need to create a small company strategy is one Element I think Europe needs because we're all like Denmark in reality the next one would be as you need series a b and see financing we see several valleys of death there's simply too little risk willing capital

[43:32] in this continent we need to attract all kinds of funders like foundations like Sovereign funds like Venture cap funds maybe from the US who see the light in Europe that that we really need to come together and is the time to act is now if Europe wants a chance we also then later on realize that as you want to scale up that's the big issue that when I was doing medicines uh I could if I didn't have factories myself I could phone a whole range of uh contract manufacturing organizations they would do the product for me the day after that

[44:03] does not exist neither in deep Tech nor does it exist in BIO Solutions so if you have a biopesticide or you have some fermentation product there's nowhere to go there are no Cosmos we need to fix that problem also in Europe because otherwise the only place to go is the US or or China and that's not we want as European citizens and then ultimately as you head for regulatory approval after the scale up and proof of concept and whatnot that's the major major issue that we don't have a simple we have a rigid you mentioned mettech in

[44:34] biosolutions I know of several companies that we have co-created that have left Denmark and Europe to go to the US because there you get approval of a biosolution product whether it's fermentation or somehow biobased in one to two years in Europe it takes six to seven years and these biodegradable products they are treated as uh hazardous chemistry according to guidelines that are still back from the 1990s so I think there's a lot to do and the best thing that has happened with Mr Trump and China and Putin is that we all realize that now is the time to act and

[45:06] as a foundation we are more than willing to work with eiib and the the European various organizations Horizon etc etc do you think there need to be more scientists as Regulators that what sorry more scientists as Regulators well well I I think you need the system for regulating and it has to be more sign based unless you can say Safety First is a good principle but we are over precautionary and it's not the natural flow for instance within in the field of Bio Solutions I I don't think we necessarily lack so much scientific talent in Europe because I think we're

[45:42] going to see a flow from west across the Atlantic to Europe and we should leverage that opportunity actually well speaking of scientific talent that flowed across the Atlantic but it's coming back to us Marta you're based in Boston you have MIT routes there um but you are ref finding ground in ceville and other places as well um I just wanted to go back to something the commissioner said actually she was talking about our academic excellence in universities here you also mentioned to me it's not for lack of talent that there are issues here um but

[46:16] I don't know if anybody happens to know she also mentioned the largest R&D program The Horizon Project how many unicorns came out of that does anybody happen to know that that you can shout out an answer okay right so then Marta tell us about your experience because I think it's you have seen both sides thank you very much Lisa so um Greenlight biosciences is a company that uh is born in the United States it was

[46:50] born 10 years ago and we created a platform a bio control platform that uh industrialized nature we use biotechnology to use a natural mode of action that can control pests in the field in a very selective in a very effective and without a toxic residue so that's truly a breakthrough in the way in which we have thought about helping Farmers control pests and protect yield

[47:23] in productivity and it's the result of the Advance advances in the field right we are starting to see that we are getting very sophisticated in designing and controlling and scaling up nature so green light in the United States uh found a a home where we were nurtured with a lot of money we were able to uh establish our R&D facility in RTP uh we have our

[47:55] Manufacturing in r New York and uh we were able to get our products approved in 24 months and uh then we went to Brazil and we were able to get our products approved in 12 months right so two years ago um my team came to me and said Marta we need to put a resarch station in sevil and I thought oh my God no one is going to believe that it was not my idea

[48:25] because I think Cil is is a wonderful place to to be and do stuff right so you would ask why CI well first of all because Europe I I think is a leader in for and uh agriculture is at the core of our culture and our economy so Europe is agriculture and high quality food systems and other things but

[48:57] absolutely it is known uh for that and then also because uh as the Romans found out and and uh and later on the the Arabs found out the wal kir is a unique fertile ground with excellent weather and you can do uh a lot of field trial development for agriculture field trial are like clinical trials plants are our patients and we have to keep cure them and we want to do as many phase ones phase twos phase 3es as we can in a year and uh

[49:34] that geographical area is the place where larger companies are also based for developing their products so that was the Inception of why we came back here however I have to say that we are new to the family of the EB with a um a facility that we signed last year and through the process uh of uh engaging with with Europe um we realized that there is a real opportunity so hi below the bad news of

[50:09] regulatory da da da da da uh the the good news at least for the area where we are working on is that we find the talent uh we are an excellent employer for the new generations not everybody needs to go to Bost un to MIT right I mean I'm happy for the opportunity I had but I do believe that uh many times I would have liked to stay here and do the same but I I couldn't it was not possible but now it's in Rich that we put forward that opportunity to

[50:46] to to our younger generation and then um as we were engaging with the European commission we truly saw this desire of simplification so when we talk about the window of opportunity that Europe has now is truly real that a lot of Technologies and companies and great people in the US in the next 12 months are going to see their world shattered in ways that

[51:20] were unbelievable before but they real now and if Europe timely signals that truly we're going to do the homework to reduce that regulatory process and get closer to other geographies and that we are really committed to help markets adopt the Innovations I think we can make it and I'm sure the capital and the money will be there to breach the companies from

[51:54] the moment in which they start to have Revenue to the break even that late stage larger tickets that that we want in Europe because I I want to share a final thought in my opinion an innovation is not an innovation if it has not reached the market and solved a problem that couldn't be solved before so we cannot say we innovate because we do a lot of

[52:25] research if we cannot take it through the finished line to impact because we don't change the world in the direction we want to change it so I want to use that word Innovation and also a word you used which just has sat with me since you mentioned it you were nourished in the US you were in this fabulous academic environment in a wonderful City and it actually Echo something Clara was saying you said you work in einhoven with great universities um I want to just ask what is the

[52:58] benefit of having really strong R&D science Parks or you know that that collaboration that conversation between University between the startup industry and just a better education of learning from a young age it was one word that came up when it came to actually pensions yesterday but educating younger people to know how to shift ideas into Innovation so I I think that uh if if I want can add I I think we we need some

[53:32] examples we need to get some of the companies that are here and some other companies engaging that younger generation and and showing it can be done that's yeah just to add to that uh at least in our country um first of all in primary school kids are not having shiny eyes thinking about mother nature and biotechnology techology and green transition uh the school system has not favored that so one of the things we are realizing is that by stimulating some of

[54:05] those uh topics Natural Sciences Etc with examples with the kits that they can use in in the labs and so on actually makes more of them want later on to go down that alley at universities and that is actually an issue because our population is aging and we need at least a significant proportion of the young ones so I think getting them early on board with the fascination of natural and Technical and and of course also you can say other Sciences thank you BS well Mary I know that you are a scientist

[54:36] yourself you've moved into the financial world now and you see an awful lot of startups coming through and for you we were just chatting outside if there's a regulation period of seven years that's that's a problem yeah that's a problem but I think the some of the solutions that the startups have to that problem you've already heard that they end up going uh to the US for a shorter pathway um but that's only one of the problems of course um so first of all I agree with

[55:10] all the things being said so I'm trying to you know tie it into um where I'm sitting in the ecosystem as a VC investor I'm investing in agriculture food chemicals and materials in biotech biosolutions and these are it's different than investing in AI for example because we're making real products so a lot of things come into play there so on the one hand yes we innovate but Innovation is only successful when it is executed and scaled and brought to Market and for

[55:43] that for example for food if you want to bring something to Market it is something um on top of everything we've had here it's also emotion we we eat it we put it into our mouths so if I'm hearing something beer is brewed cheese is you know created um from microorganisms but if we try to make meat out of microorganisms we're all getting you know a feeling of oo do I want to eat that so there's a huge amount of emotion going on around food so for all of the the challenges we've

[56:19] talked about so far this comes on top when you look at food because because we need to have a market demand so the opportunity there of course is for startups to have um food ingredients so it's going in as an ingredient we need more protein we need to be able to create protein rather than just taking it from animals um and that's I think a very very uh it's a big gap and for from a European perspective

[56:49] um if we can decrease our Reliance on you know animal whether it's um for dairy or for you know meat um we can really really gain in sustainability number one but number two is our competitiveness and that will also translate into European security if we are able to stand on our own feet rather than importing things from that perspective um to touch on education it's something um very very close to my heart my sister is she works

[57:22] at UNESCO she's all about stem her whole life is about stem so it's exactly as you already said we need to encourage our children to have an interest in science because it's only then that that in fact the children can educate the parents about science as well so it's super super important and stem education I'm saying it specifically stem is science engineering science technology engineering and maths but stem education is about getting those faculties to work together and that's the the difference

[57:55] it's not just doing a science subject it's being able to go from the the small of um test you in a lab right up to a big scaling up so there's a huge amount of engineering and that gets me to my last point which is about scaling where um if you were an innovator and you're I call it zero to one you've got a new invention great but it no needs to go from one to a million to make any difference or any impact at all and that's where I see a big opportunity for Partnerships with uh corporate cor Ates

[58:26] and that's not an easy Road CU I've been a corporate so I know what it's like from different perspectives um but we need to leverage the the um the strengths of a startup which is more on the Innovation side and the strengths of a corporate because corporates know how to scale and if we can make incentivize that then we really have something and it more often than not goes wrong which I have lots of scars from experiences there but still believe that's the way to go from having been in a corporate and seen really 400

[59:01] kiloton production plants running and it's it's just mindboggling how big that is and um to be able to have the competences to run that is very different than doing something in a fume cupboard so I think claraa you want to yeah I just would want to attach myself to that right H the way I put it is very similar actually I always put it the question is whether the big corporate gets to innovate faster or the startup gets to scale faster and that's why to your

[59:32] question collaboration is so essential because then we can help you can help us to innovate faster on the startup side and we can help you to scale faster because that's what we know how to do and that's what we have which is reach and that's why those ecosystems for us are so essential in in in in in making stuff actually happen in in the in the real world and evidently you know for me that is a very natural perspective since I'm running a business actually I have

[60:03] to make it happen in the real world otherwise it's it's not worth all that much I I just wanted to add on the stem point a lot of people now call it steam because they add the a for art and the creativity that is absolutely vital to to Science and Technology as well you did make me smile about needing more protein because literally just this morning as a smaller side I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts and the presenters were joking about the proliferation of a little egg and spinach and how um they have certainly marked up the price of a little egg and spinach so young people have certainly

[60:39] got the memo about the need for protein so perhaps we need a conversation about what type of protein we need in the future Eric we haven't heard your voice yet but it's a very important voice again you have a a long and uh and very steamed history working and trying to figure out the so talk to us about what goes well what doesn't work thank you and thank you for thank you for having me today um prity and Venture Capital play an Irreplaceable role in shaping the future of Biotech food and Life Sciences in Europe and has done so for

[61:13] half a century already and that role is only growing these industries rely on Innovation and we contribute to funding it from early breakthroughs in labs to scaling high impact companies that's how we ensure Europe stays competitive in some of the most critical sectors of our time but right now I must say we have a challenge there's a market failure in early stage investment from our perspective while there's now more Capital available for companies at latest stages and I would like to congratulate s for his latest

[61:47] fundraising which has been announced on Monday and for Novo Holdings continuous support on on these topics as well uh well there is an issue for early stage companies the ones working on the next big breakthroughs because we're just struggling to secure funding and it's a shame uh because Europe VC is actually the leader clearly in Europe versus usvc on that specific segment so if we let this Innovation Gap grow uh we

[62:23] risk affecting the European foundations in the industry and worse as was mentioned already several times uh the best ideas might end up going elsewhere taking Talent technology and economic growth with them invest is publishing the authoritative data in V capital prity and infrastructure fund managers so I will share some of the trends with you so that you understand why uh I'm I'm actually worried um invest Europe's data confirm this declines in Venture

[62:53] Capital commited between 2021 and 2023 are occurring amongst almost all stakeholders while the decline slowed between 2023 the market has not yet fully stabilized Banks funder funds insurance companies family offices spread individuals and government agencies uh have seen actually their funding scaled back in the last couple of years corporate investors endowments and Foundations remain a strong funding source but with very high volatility

[63:29] while Pension funds have slightly increased their commitments over the last couple of years so in essence the covid-19 uh biotech investment boom quickly faded and now we need to reset and rebuild for the future Eric I'd love you to tell us about how you view the collaboration that is possible between all the various uh money pots the public the private what is the best form of collaboration and how can it work quickly well Public Funding must complement not compete with private

[64:01] Capital to make financing agile easy to navigate and and efficient the goal is really clear we need to attract and retain Capital at every stage of innovation to Echo what my co-panelists have said earlier coration between public institutions and PR equity and vure capital firms therefore plays an important role in filling this this Gap public institions provide policy Frameworks regulatory support and early stage funding when appropriate while

[64:35] private venture capital is actually focusing on Market discipline scalability and strategic expertise but even there there are some challenges at the moment uh government backed Venture Capital has actually decline more than private Venture Capital since 2022 for are a number of reasons for that governance agency's decline indicates budget constraints and govern unback funding is also Under Pressure the current MMF under invest EU is being used that faster than expected because

[65:10] the needs are there and thef is working hard to deploy funds quickly but life senses was not a priority in the invest program and as you're aware demand is growing and we need to think bigger so as demand grows we need to ask ourselves how do we expand both models and how do we improve interactions between public institions and private investors and well I think there are a number of possibilities that we should explore one of them that's been mentioned also is that Europe must

[65:46] work effectively together to ensure the efficient allocations of Investments across the EU right now National investment regulations vary too much making it complex and slow to deploy Capital across borders so the promising idea that I heard earlier via the commissioner is actually the 28th regime as a means to solve this fragmentation it's a framework that amize these rules across Europe and makes it easier for investors to back startups and scale-ups so this really could create uh a more

[66:21] predictable environment for p investment but again we come back to simplification it needs to be designed right if it simply added a another level of complexity it won't work the focus must be on ambition simplification U removing fragmentation across National markets and last but not least ensuring that Capital flows quickly to the companies that need it most Mary I just want to comment on that because in my former life I I live in

[66:53] the Netherlands the last 25 years you here I'm not Dutch I am Irish that conclusion was also right um so what I saw there when I was a small investor um is that on the one hand you've got national funding but on the other hand then you've got provin on Province level so I was in a fund where in fact I had to make the startup stay in my little postage stamp part of postage stamp the Netherlands sorry to the Dutch but the Dutch are is super but it's really really small um and this is a Big

[67:25] Challenge because if you have a a clause in your in your um shareholders agreement that says you have to stay in liberg for example this is a challenge if you're looking for an investor to come from outside and if you say okay I'm going to you know Ireland is going to invest in me I'll move to Ireland but you can't and if you do it's just so it's like we talked about yesterday in terms of the single Market you also should have a single you know from this perspective as well that there we shouldn't think well that you're moving from one country to another in Europe that's competition we should think of

[68:00] ourselves as one Europe and the competition is outside of Europe and you know I think that's a key point because the startups have a super lot of constraints when they're trying to find their capital and if we all have constraints on the capital we can give them then um I'm lucky now Sophie Nova have much less constraints than when I was a small local investor but you know it's just to illustrate the point of of they start small and they have already constraints before they before we even meet them and then we have to navigate that well that's really fascinating

[68:31] because again one of the top lines that has sat in my head since yesterday was M Maria Luis Albuquerque who said that Europe should have one Silicon Valley not 27 and she said she doesn't care where it is I mean when we think about the US of course Mar you know this all too well we all know we can think of two hotpots of investment and brilliant research and that kind of seeded of unicorn exploration China we can think again most of us will know one or two there are City spots in University spots

[69:04] so you where should that be so um from from the perspective of biotechnology applied to agriculture s um I already mentioned that there is an area for research and development but I have to say that uh when you bring products to Farmers you go everywhere and you work everywhere and you collaborate with uh universities in all places in Europe so

[69:36] even if there is a concentration of a particular phase of development in a geography in Europe the New Frontiers for development in agriculture can uplift this type of um high quality programs in many places so we shouldn't get nervous because there is a place that has a concentration of talent in fact you want that because you want people to move from company to company for an example just as an example we have a very

[70:12] sophisticated operation in Seville a large uh field trial development station that generally a startup takes a lot of time and money to build so that facility that we use at 80% of its capacity has a 20% that we are going to have open for a small biotech companies that are developing sustainable Innovations for agriculture so just by the fact that we are there and that we have this open Innovation

[70:45] mindset it makes sense that other companies reuse a a resource that is already built to advance FAS so there are positives to have certain concentration of activities but that doesn't mean that then Innovation for agriculture will only happen there it will happen everywhere because nowaday um I have employees everywhere and they are innovating with

[71:16] us we don't need to be collocated so I know mat you want to add yeah I I would just add that I I totally agree I mean it's not a secret that that the Danish government they wants to create a so-called mini kentle square like in Boston called Innovation District Copenhagen but when that is said and is driven of course by the farmer sector by the by solution sector that exist in that region but when that is said I would fully agree that uh it should be all over Europe because communication we're in the same time zones uh all can do teams meetings we we are funding a regenerative medicine center where the three uh nodes so to speak are in

[71:54] Copenhagen lied in the Netherlands and Milbourne Australia and they're running 60 projects within regenerative medicine and it's working extremely well even despite the time zone differences so I don't think we should be competing like when the EU cre wants to create five so-called AI Giga factories with all the software algorithms Etc needed to be a world leader any in any given specific uh discipline whether it's Pharma whether it's by Solutions or whatever deep Tech um it doesn't really matter whether it's in Paris Munich whether

[72:25] it's Copenhagen or Stockholm uh it will be accessible for everyone so I don't think we should compete the big issue is that we're still too fragmented we're not working closely enough together considering that we are just one small continent well that brings us back to what Eric was saying which is that and it's something that perhaps we don't discuss enough we often have we often have in all sorts of uh conferences uh the discussion about oh Europe's risk averse when it comes to money but we don't often have the conversation that we are in internally competitive even commune to commune so that's another conversation that perhaps needs to be

[73:00] explored more Eric you want to add yeah it's true that when you look at the way uh actually Innovation is finan across Europe you see that uh French institutions are financing a French Venture CLE firms and we have the same issue replicated on on literally every every country so I think that the important topic that we should also discuss today is access to Capital because the access to cap Capital to venture capital is as SC as Venture Capital has SC resources to devote to

[73:32] typically live sciences and it's really important to to mention that there's something that should be done I think at European level to eliminate these frictions which and this limited access to Capital we need to structure the financial ecosystem to support investment across all stages and all investors not just when companies are ready to scale is too late basically so that means that adapting regular FR should happen for Pension funds for

[74:02] insurance companies for banks among others to make long-term investment in Innovation more attractive today these inal investors are disincentivized to invest in vention capital who itself has less means than it should to support Innovation and that's should go because it's too important uh for us to let that uh stay too long secondly we can also do targeted actions to to make this happen for smaller startups Public Funding

[74:34] should step in to bridge the market failure I indicated earlier that actually public institutions were investing Less in proportion uh in the decline that that that other private Venture Capital normally in in in I say economic theory uh public ination should compensate at least partly what the public markets can provide in terms of funding that did not happen so this needs I think to be to be sold as well

[75:05] while making sure that larger scaling companies find the appropriate financing and which was very encouraging to to hear the commissioner telling us that with the EI they were thinking about a new program to support specifically licenses and biotech I know that we're having a conversation which is steered for obvious reasons towards money and the need for for raising the correct pipelines and pillars for everything to get to market for the Innovation to reach the people now when a young person

[75:38] looks around and thinks what will I work in I want to bring it back to the topic which is about food Life Sciences things that we need in our lives for our longevity and we have an aging demographic here as well uh Medtech for example as well um why would a person in Europe a young student in Europe want to study in these Realms other than thinking oh I must go and study Tech I must do AI I must go and become a financier why should they study these topics well when you talk to your kids

[76:10] um they all talk about we need to save the Earth the climate is going you know array uh Etc so the things that concern them in terms of biodiversity climate mitigation in terms of green transition of society they are all driven by scientific disciplin stem plus a few others so the sheer reason that they are more preoccupied by the globe maybe even than their parents are should drive them in that direction and we should convince them that only with their contributions going forward will we actually solve the problems because we need them in a demographic situation where we're

[76:45] getting to be too many old people and too many uh young ones too few young ones to actually do the science so we need to actually instill that in their minds early on well I won't go down the conversation topic of the green transition and the digitalization being completely Divergent because the need for water and various other things but I will open it up to the floor so if we could have the lights down and the lights up I would love to ask um for your questions from the floor so I am beginning to see faces now um so have

[77:15] anybody here have you any questions for our panel I'm not going to have the excuse that the first panel after the first day is a quiet one I know that you all have strong voices and thoughts and ideas so any questions to our panel yes I would love a question from you and if you can introduce yourself as well the gentleman who knows at least 30 unicorns in Europe and I'm PJ Parson from Venture Capital firm North Zone and

[77:49] uh that's probably why I know 30 because we have backed quite a few of them including Spotify uh anyway anyway um a a recurring theme Here is the problem of fragmentation and uh H it seems like that's the sort of the the endemic problem that we're not really uh getting to the heart of um and uh I also see that even eib has that challenge to deal with all the sort of the member states respective needs but do you see a path

[78:23] to actually elim minate that apart from the the 28th member State or the the the administrative 28th state which I think is a great idea and it will definitely improve things for startup ecosystem but do you see what what are the most important things to do to eliminate this fragmentation which seems to be the core of the problem well uh at least one way if you're a philanthropy like like is it not working okay like the foundation

[78:55] we historically have awarded grants to investigators scientific investigators let's say in Denmark or Sweden or so now that we're going pan European uh we will almost demand collaboration between universities so just like we are funding research centers with nodes in different European countries we will also have grants where you can have a principal investigator but then you need co-pis in other European countries really forcing the best of Academia to work closer together otherwise they won't get a grant so so that's one way of doing it another is of course doing hotspot

[79:26] mapping of a given scientific discipline and then having identified the hottest of those hotspots then you actually offer them a collaboration where uh that has to be synergistic in in some shape or form I I want to take your point and and put the fra fragmentation in the context of the goto market and the fragmented or many steps regulatory process and and I think that that's a barrier that if the simplification gets to solve at least

[80:01] for Frontier Technologies uh we're going to see a number of technologies that are ready to be used getting into the market and then a lot of incentive for LPS to give money to to venture groups to capture those opportunities so we have a backlog of technologies that are ready to be used waiting at the door of the Regulatory and that process which is

[80:35] fragmented today requires extra attention because we see that other sophisticated Regulators they do it in a centralized Manner and that they do it in in less time so we don't need to reinvent the the the wheel we are not talking about not doing doing it responsibly making sure that what we put in the field is safe it can be done is just willing

[81:05] political willingness and really putting that as a also as a security priority because we want to be able to grow the food we're going to need to have food sovereignty as well right so that that's another thought about fragmentation that will incentivize the creation of a stronger market for investment Eric is just just two two comments on on that one one of the answers is stopping

[81:36] golden gold plating at member state level of European legislation when it's incorporated into a member states law that would help tremendously on a lot of different levels that's one and second is tax incentives but I would won to go that through too much except to mention that uh grants are valuable tools but they are slow abandoned by lengthy applications and bureautic hold dos uh if you think at tax credits on the other hand it gives companies immediate predictable Financial relief allowing startups to reinvest in R&D in talent

[82:12] and many other things and I think in terms of model we should think more in terms of Europe as trying to push for actually tax credits IE member states this decisions on that that could be actually europeanized versus grants which I has I think have shown its limits yeah um quick comment fragmentation is also at the level of between Academia um you can say let's take plant-based foods for instance you have the farmers those that create the new seeds for the crops you have uh like

[82:50] the food industry all of these if we want let's say plant-based foods to take off our impression has been that the way to get them together is you've been using open source Innovation where there's no patenting it's IP free environment then after the given project has taken place then Everybody's Free To Take Out patents etc etc but this has really facilitated the various actors to become not fragmented but to work together in one ecosystem so I think that's something that also even in Pharmaceuticals has turned out to work

[83:20] in a in a project that we've called Odin I think we should try to do more of that because many of these areas are pre-competitive rather than competitive per se because adding to that if a if a startup has to create their own value their customer channels that is huge work and has huge costs if they can leverage the corporate down the line that you can use their channels there's value to be shared there and I think it's about value sharing at the end of the day across the whole chain of innovation I just want to

[83:52] bring it back to you I think you still have the microphone yes what is your solution if this works yeah um I'm not sure if I have a solution other than um that the uh there there are there are a couple of Concepts that I think sort of are always in the way and it's that that you need to sort of uh please a certain local government or you're trying to sort of uh shape the legislation to make

[84:27] something specific happen because there's always an unintended consequence and uh and uh the I I'm I'm not against regulation I think a regulation is very important to sort of get um larger markets to to work together but I think in general um we I I think I think we are uh Missing the the mark in in many regulatory uh um uh context and and it's not this subject specifically but gdpr was was a very

[85:02] interesting idea that I think was about protecting us to be um basically um leveraged by the big platform companies and uh Europe went ahead and did that regulation but what actually happened was that all the media companies that were putting all the sort of investments into to creating the content they were the ones that were hit and the the the platform companies the the big American companies they basically got a free pass from this

[85:35] regulatory uh thing and I and I think the EU really should look a lot more into sort of the unintended consequences of what uh can happen and most of those are you know just getting us more and more fragmented and weaker in in this new environment thank you other questions from the FL we have a qu oh we have great can we have quick questions because I have maybe five minutes left so quick questions quick answers and

[86:07] quick microphone movement European long-term investors Association the association of national promotional Banks and institutions uh not not that quick so the public investors um yesterday um May fad um from the eif said if I would be um put myself in in the shoes of a start up I would go to the yes for the reason of valuation and we hear that the European commission is

[86:39] reflecting about changes in the savings and investment Union and I would be interested to uh to learn from from the panel do what do you think uh we could do in Europe to have better valuation better exit possibilities uh for investors uh so that um uh their companies uh are attracted to stay in Europe thank you I will take that question I will also take the question right at the back if the microphone could move right to the back and I will allow our wonderful panel who

[87:15] these latecomers have missed a little bit of time to just summarize in about 3 minutes uh your main points but I'm going to take this question at the back as well to combine it thank you very much uh my name is Kate pel I'm a final PhD candidate at Alber University in Denmark it was very inspiring discussion and in it has actually inspired an idea to develop a multidisciplinary project proposal on educating young children in

[87:49] primary school on themes that all of you talked about and entrepreneurship venture capital investment stem Agri food Etc uh in my free time I'm also um supporting academics in developing beats for Horizon Europe Etc so I am very interested in um exploring with you with you panelists with other people here an opportunity of jointly developing this

[88:19] kind of project I will be here available if you would like to to take it further I'll be really happy to discuss it thank you I think that's a private conversation that be can be taken into the break but we wish you the very best of luck and I think we all support those ideas but we have the first question there as well and in about three 3ish minutes would you like to just uh answer the question but also summarize everything we've said in the last hour because we now have literally doubled the population in the room yeah I I think I would just repeat that I do believe that Capital goes

[88:55] where it's easiest to have impact at least that's how I look at how we deploy Capital so I would want to urge us again to consider simplification uh of respective even European legislation not to talk about local legislation to really make sure that we can make get products to Market fast enough in Europe to have the impact on our um European in my case Health Systems because that's what I speak from I think the urge and the the necessity is quite high so I would love us to to

[89:27] see how how we can impact that to look look at Health Care not as a cost Factor but as um as as a as a factor that where Better Health can promote actually economic growth um and uh and and to make sure that we see the investment that we make to also bring the economic return um for Europe in that space yeah I I would say that the value chain within life science uh is not stronger than the weakest link and we've discussed many of those parts of the

[90:02] value chain from the translation from basic Research into actually spin out companies we need a systematic and and concerted efforts to make that happen um the ways to do that from The Valleys of death that relate to uh actually funding the growth of these towards series a BNC and so on and the scaling up technologically speaking to a proof of concept stage and to the commercial stage where we are definitely lacking European infrastructure and and as I mentioned also more risk willing Capital so I think we need a concerted effort across Europe in in all of these areas

[90:36] well I think that's a perfect line we are not stronger than our weakest link and we can put that across pretty much any conversation Mara uh so uh I'm I'm in full agreement uh with what was just said and I would like just to to leave you with the thought uh is a company that is in the United States and in Europe and wants to grow in Europe in the next years aggressively I have to tell you that there is a window of opportunity that uh the

[91:11] simplification can signal to other companies in the US that need certainty and they will come because you have the market and you are aligned with the thought of climate sustainability food and quality so I encourage everyone to push the ideas that the president introduced in her opening remarks and truly make those regulatory

[91:43] systems simpler to push all those technologies that are already developed to the market because the solutions we need in the next five years they have already been developed we need to push them in the hands of the farmers and the customers in general thank you Mary if you ask me what I'd like to see I'd like to see us collaborating rather than being in competition with each other as European countries so we need

[92:17] to have a shared need we have a shared need but we have to really identify this shared need that's the first thing you got to do for change management so we need to manage the change that we need to make here and we need to scale these um Technologies in a speedy way thank you Mary and final short word Eric I'll try to answer Elmo's question I think that the savings and investment initiatives that we're talking about is great uh I don't think that uh

[92:50] securitization will serve our industry but it will certainly serve the banks and and and serve financing of the European economy so I'm interested to see what will actually be done for public market for private markets where today the main means of financing European smmes now to you last question uh Lisa I think that biotech food and life senses should be a Europe priority for comp and must be treated as such as a long-term Strategic investment and financed as well second thing I think

[93:26] that uh regular Frameworks must adapt to make long-term investment into biotech and life senses more attractive they are not to date and lastly uh I think that uh Public Funding must complement private capital in all its capacities and there are numerous we've mentioned a number of initiatives and we welcome all of them thank you so much thank you to our wonderful panel thank you and good luck with all of the work ahead of you thank [Music]

[93:58] [Applause] you well welcome welcome to all of those of you who have who have joined us touch later I can see a little collection of people towards that door as as always plenty of space this side of the room feel free to just walk over in this direction you'll find plenty of Cheers do come forward we always like to see faces in the front rows and I can see plenty of empty chairs over in that side in particular

[94:28] um thank you thank you for being with us thank you again to those of us uh joining us online I'm now honored to move to the next section and to introduce this next section please welcome to the stage Teresa Ribera who is Executive Vice President for clean just and competitive transition at the European Commission [Applause] good morning everybody it's a great pleasure to be here with you

[95:00] today and um thank you Nadia thank you NAD I was making a joke um her capacity to innovate impacts even the Luxemburg weather you have realized how she has made it possible to have a bright and sunny day today in Luxemburg um I was enjoying this very last comments been made by the previous panel and I like so much to hear about uh the

[95:30] low hungering fruit that is already there that we need to bet on and to invest and Ure that we are able to to develop to De deployer capacities and we was so happy to hear about the cooperation mood because this is what all of this is about how we can cooperate to improve the quality of life not only in the best place to live which probably is Europe but all over the world how we can help

[96:01] each other to improve the quality of life and I say this in a very particular year this is the year where we celebrate the 10th anniversary of um the sustainable development goals the Paris agreement the moment when we thought that we had achieved it paramounts in terms of how we could work together for a better share future for

[96:33] all and it is quite a contradiction to see where we are today because in fact what we see every day is um that there are commons forces challenging this way to understand how we can cooperate for a better world and how we should thinking in different terms how we come back I could say to the 19th century where the strength the force was the main argument to decide on how to build

[97:05] the future which is not good news but if we cooperate together most of the people in different countries in different institutions in the public and private communities in this room being represented today in this forum we may stand up and say that we still want to cooperate for a better world so I want to express my sincere appreciation for the close cooperation

[97:36] between the European Investment Bank the European institutions and all the players that um came today to say that we want to work together in a moment where the European Investment Bank has been a cornor for this mission how we can develop a world how we can Champion projects that do not only protect our economy but understand that our economy or development relies on a good functioning ecosystem on a prosperous Society or on

[98:12] a society that wants to invest in its s Prosperity so so proud to be part of uh this big family including the European Union climate and Development Bank fing economic growth understanding that the creation of wealth does matter and that when we think about wealth we need to think about a wealth that lasts and not just a very shortterm profit that could not be

[98:44] lasting along the years we're in a moment that I would qualify as a critical juncture facing unprecedented challenges such as an intense geopolitical competition and I come back to this idea of competition competitiveness we hear a lot about competing or defending instead of cooperation or thinking on how competitiveness May lie on a balanced approach on social environmental and economic aspects we are living in a rapid

[99:17] technological changes we are living in a context of uncertainties and we cannot not expect from others what we cannot do on our own so we should be thinking how we can avoid staying in a corner how we can identify the best way forward building our own responses on our strengths and we have a lot of strengths we should not really thinking that there is nothing that can be done on the contrary we can identify the M answers in this turbulent times this will be

[99:52] more important than ever and the world is more than two three big Powers it is lots of people willing to invest in a better future that take into consideration the way we have managed in Europe to commit around our core values to develop a well functioning Society of course still with many things and many challenges ahead but um a dream for most of the human

[100:23] human beings in this in this planet so we need to resist the temptation to compromise these principles in response to external pressures of uncertainty on the contrary we should be developing these principles these ideas in order to shape the right responses our values should guide our external internal policies and this is what we are trying to do in the commission around different aspects that deal with external threats and of course it's been a shake how we can identify sec security as a main priority that we

[100:55] thought that um could be approached in a much more relaxing way that doesn't seem to be the case fostering cooperation rooted in diplomacy mutual respect the adherence to the international order the UN Charter the borders the peace the cooperation the global governance the regional or bilateral capacity to find the common ground the trade as a means to connect different societies to ensure a much more prosperous life internally translating

[101:30] our vales means pushing sustainable and inclusive growth which is essential for maintaining a healthy environment job security social peace and preserving the resilience of our society Europe has the strengths and we need to navigate these moments and we have lots of things that we identify as relevant aspects to be sure that our financial communities our capacities to build around the single market and deepen in the single Market to make the best possible use of our

[102:04] savings so to turn back to the society with additional proposals are not forgotten or let aside we all know that the American financial markets have traditionally outperformed the European financial markets but yet it is around sustainable finance that Europe leads it is around these concepts of savings Union building and deepening the single Market using our resources to

[102:39] develop a model of economy that can last and provides comfort and wealth in a share manner to all based on our own values is still the core of the European institutions mandates 62% of the European financial markets in terms of assets under management are ESD that is have sustainability

[103:11] credentials or characteristics of being sustainable we have a Competitive Edge in sustainable Finance in fact the rest of the world has and continues to look into the European Union as the example to Follows 58% sorry 58 taxonomies in other geographies thought about making across the globe being inspired by the European

[103:44] Union taxonomy and equally in many other areas on how to identify the risk and how to create the value are we going to renounce to that of course not the ESG the sustainability linked to financial products has been one of the most important growth Trends in the European markets for a very long time already and it is

[104:17] increasingly happening in many other parts of the world so we cannot forget about that we may need to find ways to simplify the way we proceed we may need to be more clear on why this matters but we cannot forget about this we cannot forget that we want a prosperous economy that we want to fabric in Europe that we want the public services that allow us to count on an

[104:47] educated population medical and health attention for the citizens capacity to provide opportunities to all and this means making wise decisions when dealing with Finance last week we um adopted one of the most relevant um strategies so to ensure that we can keep on building this growth narrative and to bet on the European capacities to fabric to

[105:21] manufacture in Europe the clean industrial deal is at the heart of the flagship initi initiatives for the first 100 days of this commission this plan is not just a policy it is Europe's business plan for tackling the climate CR crisis boosting competitiveness and securing a prosperous future for our Industries and our citizens it is clean it is industrial it is deal it is clean because if we want to create value

[105:54] we know that we need to take into consideration such a relevant thing as Market forces that do understand that um ecosystems biodiversity climate resource efficiency are at the very core of smart decisions when creating wealth it is industrial because we want to manufacture we want to innovate we want to count on high quality jobs we want to be sure that we are more resilient that we combine in a much more healthier manner Global and local but that we can

[106:29] contribute to the Industrial Revolution that is already ongoing and it is deal because we need to partner with different stakeholders public private National local International markets have developed much more broader but very small at the same time it sets out a clear pathway for Europe to lead as a clean manufacturing and Innovation Powerhouse something that we have always appreciated where we can

[106:59] find many other partners all over the world where we can find how to ensure that our talent our young Talent remains in Europe there are six key pillars guiding the journey ensuring access to Affordable energy and we have here my very good colleague Dan Jenson the commissioner in charge of energy to boosting clean supply and demand how we can create the conditions to ensure that we take the right decisions when being consumers or When taking into

[107:32] consideration the public procurement on the availability of resources and services that are solid mobilizing public and private Investments powering the circular economy fostering International Partnerships and upskilling workers to guarantee a fair and inclusive transition for all and the financial component of our plan stands out as a pivotal element to make this transition a reality we must secure the necessary investments from scaling up renewable energy infrastructures to

[108:04] support in the manufacturing of clean Technologies in the short term we have committed to develop a joint road map for competitiveness and decarbonization aiming for 100 billion euros in funding based on available funds in The Innovation fund additional revenues resulting from parts of the Mission trading system as well as the revision of the invest EU facility in the upcoming proposal to the next multiannual financial framework before the summer a new European

[108:34] competitiveness fund will respond to these needs in a much more integrated fashion but we need to start thinking how we are going to shape this the fund will establish an investment capacity that will support the Strategic Technologies and Manufacturing which are critical to European competitiveness including important product of common European interest or infrastructure that can connect Europe it will help to leverage and the risk private Investments we have worked closely with the European Investment Bank in the

[109:05] Preparatory stages of this plan and now we count on your commitment your support for the implementation and speaking out about the the risk in Investments to accelerate the energy transition I could underscore the very important role that the European Investment Bank has already is still and will still play in this field the pilot program on corporate power purchase agreements for an indicative amount of 500 million EOS

[109:39] will allow industrial customers to buy energy directly from a producer like renewable energy sources at a lower price and the European Investment Bank is also our key partner to introduce a g manufactur ing package to give a g manufacturer sorry to give to give G manufacturers the long-term certainty needed for them to ramp up production to match our needs with an indicative amount of at least 1.5 billion EUR but to enable these Investments we also need

[110:12] to count on the competition tools to ensure that whenever it is a need to develop some ideas around the state data signning labeler that can play a strategic role takes place in a simplified manner this will new approach this new approach will ESP that support for renewable energy industrial decarbonization and the manufacturing of clean tech products ensuring the effective use of public funds while encouraging private sector invest involvement this is why we will be

[110:45] opening for public consultation a new set of guidelines to make use of the state dat in order to provide support in a way that does not make the Level Playing Field or the single Market PA that points out the importance to support the clean industrial DL we will launch this consultation and we hope you engage in this work closely with member states and other stakeholders I could say that um it will be quite important to keep this taxonomy

[111:21] reference I I could say that um knowing what we speak about reassuring the importance to keep the purpose of this whole sustainable Finance package so to allow us to learn how to invest in a smart manner how to avoid risk that we do not want to be facing in the time to come will still be very important we remain deeply committed to building a Greener andair society and we look forward to a constructive debate between pro-european

[111:52] groups to deliver while maintaining the policy objectives and main elements in these crucial regulations looking to the Future the work is far from being done looking to the past we count on the framework conditions on the landscape that we wanted to achieve as the reference that we should be following in today's complex your political landscape believe me Europe

[112:26] can make a difference and there are many people outside that wait from us making the difference please let's join forces and act together thank you so [Applause] much so much now we're going to move from European competitiveness to something that is incredibly important for so many many people it's something to do with social and economic values and it is affordable housing we know the issue very well here

[112:59] in Luxembourg and it goes right across Europe so in order to talk about this it's a great pleasure to invite once more to the stage president of the eiib Nadia calvinho [Applause] good morning everyone what a a great pleasure to be here uh in the stage again and to speak just after my de Teresa rera Executive

[113:34] Vice President of the commission and together with my dear Dan jersen commissioner for energy and and housing it is a great pleasure and I take this opportunity to say loud and clear that the European Investment Bank has as its top priority to consolidate its role as the climate bank and that means that we will continue to Endeavor to uh mobilize public and private investment in key areas for Europe security and competitiveness going forward starting with energy GDs and

[114:09] energy infrastructures and interconnectors the deployment of renewable energy technological innovation that will maintain Europe's leadership in this area and ensure that climate and competitiveness are just two sides of a coin that will ensure that the green transition is a European success now moving from these large energy uh infrastructures to something which is much closer to the daily lives of

[114:40] Europeans a Jo a shared challenge throughout the EU housing last year I devoted my first 12 months on on the job to visit the 27 member states and one of the most surprising findings was discovering that housing is a challenge for almost all member states very different circumstances very different demographics very different growth levels and yet access to housing

[115:11] affordable housing especially for the young is a shared Challenge and is a top political priority for leaders throughout the EU so immediately we engaged with the European commission it's so good that there's a devoted a specific commissioner for housing in the European commission to see how we could join our forces and make sure that we would uh try to tackle working together this Challenge and support National governments and National key players in this

[115:46] endeavor it is estimated that the European Union needs to build 1 million more new homes every year to meet the demand renovating another 5 million will help us to lower energy bills for households and to lower emissions contributing to climate change furthermore we need to develop a European industry that is able to build sustainable housing uh energy efficient houses fast and cheaper so here we are we have three key

[116:20] elements uh new uh building industry at European level renovation and new houses affordable houses especially for the young that require massive investment so as a European Investment Bank if there's one thing that we can do is mobilized public and private investment and I am so happy to be sharing with you our first response an action plan that will allow us to increase the scale and impact of our support to Europe's housing sector

[116:53] we plan to double our financing to an annual 6 billion e as of next year in this area and this will mean around 10 billion euros of financing over the next two years that will be mobilized uh from the European Investment Bank we plan to extend our whole housing value chain across the EU in a in a moment vice president Takis who has been leading our housing task force is going to give some more details and we want to have these three prong approach a mobilizing investment for Innovation sustainability

[117:28] and affordability working in Partnership is at the core of our action plan we have big Ambitions and we have uh also big partners and shareholders and stakeholders sorry that we will be working uh with from the national promotional banks that have immediately jumped on on the uh um uh project and are very willing to contribute to the private sector the building industry throughout the EU and of course the European commission I am uh quite

[118:00] confident that h on the basis of the platform that we will be uh launching precisely in a moment today and by bringing on board all those public and private players that want to be uh activating the levers to address the housing needs in Europe we will succeed and we will be able to increase the quality of life of Europeans once more let me repeat what I said in my introductory remarks I am proud to be European thank you very

[118:35] much thank you so much president and now please uh give a warm welcome to Dan Jorgenson the European commissioner for energy and housing [Applause] thank you Madame President DEA Teresa I I I really liked the phrase I'm proud to be

[119:09] European I would have liked that also five years ago or 10 years ago but I like it especially today we are living in turbulent times and I don't know if you all feel like this but I'm almost afraid to look at my phone in the morning when I wake up what happened across the Atlantic during the night and I think that the only answer that we know for certain is the right one from us to this

[119:42] situation is to work together is to stand together is to be United and that goes for more or less all of the issues that we collaborate on in the European Union so yes of course defense this is what we're all focusing on but actually the social fabric what keeps us together our models our European social models they are an important part of our strength so we

[120:12] need to build on them before I I I say something specifically on housing which is an important element of this allow me to just share a few remarks on on my other the other part of my portfolio uh energy you know in in certain political offices around the planet you have to swear on the Bible before you assume them I'll share with you uh a secret here to become a European commissioner you have to swear on the dragy

[120:46] report I'm kidding but I'm also not really kidding so the drag report mentions energy almost 700 times for a reason um our competitiveness in Europe is suffering because our Energy prices are too high at the same time we experienced last year the hottest year ever measured climate change is no longer only something that

[121:18] happens in Africa and other parts of of the planet it's here we see the floodings we see this devastating uh forest fires droughts and there's a war on our continent I calculated this is a bit of a scary number I calculated that if we look at how much money Europe has spent buying fossile fuels in

[121:50] Russia since February 22 if we add that up instead we could have bought 2400 completely new F35 fighter jets instead that money went to help indirectly fill up Putin's watchest so competitiveness decarbonization fighting CL climate change becoming independent

[122:24] of Russian fossile fuel is at the core of everything we do right now and last week we presented a clean industrial deal and an affordable energy action plan that that does indeed put forward a lot of concrete proposals that will that will help us so just to underline there's no backtracking from the commitments on the green transition from the European Commission on the contrary we are fast tracking we need to deploy more renewable energy we need to become more

[122:57] energy efficient we need to have a closer energy Union so housing rent has risen by about a quarter in the last 15 years in Europe in average house prices are up by half last year approximately 177% of our population was living in overcrowded houses and one in 10 Europeans spent 40%

[123:33] or more of their disposable income on housing so these are all numbers but behind these numbers are people young people forced to put off starting a family vulnerable people threatened with homelessness students who cannot take up University places workers who cannot accept job offers rural communities

[124:05] facing depopulation cities unable to retain teachers nurses or police officers because they cannot afford to live where they work these people and their stories provide living proof of the housing crisis and the impact it has on Europe how it threatens social justice and social cohesion of how it weakens our economy and reduces our competitiveness it is for these reasons

[124:36] and for these people the president V delion tged me with addressing this crisis so where do we begin the commission has already established a new housing task force which will support me in delivering the European affordable housing plan in early 2026 for this year 20125 a key Focus will be on Outreach dialogue and partnership the commission will be

[125:06] listening to and learning from all of you together with the European Parliament we will soon launch the consultative process to a certain key housing priorities at European level a number of these priorities are already very clear for example we need to modernize the construction sector to support the supply of affordable and sustainable housing that will be the goal of the European strategy for housing construction we will seek to reduce

[125:41] building and renovation costs to support more skilled workers facilitate greater access to the single market and harness the full potential of digitalization and Innovative building techniques we will also take a hard look at the permitting rules to speed up planning and construction and to make better use of vacant buildings we will assess factors such as short-term rentals and speculation and

[126:11] address their Economic Consequences putting my other hat on again energy we must also Leverage the synergies between affordability and sustainability last week for example the commission adopted the affordable energy action plan that I just mentioned which will support households to improve Energy Efficiency bring down bills and avoid energy poverty last year between 45 and 47 million Europeans were not

[126:46] able to adequately warn their homes this is of course unac acceptable we will team up with other institutions such as the EI and European Parliament to build Partnerships to bring in expertise from all relevant fields and to share best practices between member States cities and regions and of course we must provide funding and finance our Prime Focus here today the EU is already mobilizing

[127:19] substantial funding for example the recovery and resilience facility supports significant Investments and reforms in housing across member states more than 22 billion EUR is going into social housing and other social infrastructure and an estimated 85 billion EUR is going into Energy Efficiency Renovations and the construction of new energy efficient buildings there are other important funding streams such as as invest EU

[127:50] life and Horizon Europe the social climate fund of course also the commission will continue to push for more funding for housing for example we will encourage and enable member states to double the amount currently planned under the cohesion policy funds I will work closely together with Executive Vice President rera Teresa who is also here in the revision of the state aid rules and wherever possible

[128:22] we will help to mobilize private investment through invest EU and Energy Efficiency financing Coalition we can be much more Innovative in our investments and we need to maintain strong cooperation to ensure maximum Synergy in spending so I very much welcome the approach from the EI and its emerging action plan on housing today's launch of the investment

[128:53] portal is further good news and a vital first step towards the pvpn investment platform this platform is Central to our plans it will enable us to gather together the different work streams on funding and financing for affordable and sustainable housing and make it accessible I underline the full commitment of the commission to work closely with the eiib and the eif as well as National promotional Banks and

[129:25] international financial institutions to make sure this platform achieves it its objective the pan European Corporation is essential because the housing crisis presents a challenge to European values European competitiveness and European citizens so it is time to take ownership of this Challenge and deliver a European solution solution bringing on more investment is of course a key part of the solution to make housing more

[129:58] affordable sustainable and decent so let's invest in affordable housing to drive our long-term competitiveness to tackle homelessness and social inclusion to help our communities become Greener healthier and more pleasant places to live let's remember that these Investments go beyond bricks and mortar when we invest in housing we invest in people teachers nurses police officers so that they can live among the children

[130:33] that they nurture the people that they care for and the neighborhoods that they protect we invest in friends and families and neighbors the people who turn our Villages towns and cities into communities the people who turn our houses into homes on that note I thank the EIP once again for hosting this very important event thank [Music]

[131:06] [Applause] you thank you so much commissioner Jon thank you so much for those wonderful words and now we have a very special double session uh continuing on this topic so it's a great pleasure to welcome to this stage David yaser who's going to take you through a couple of panel discussions no less and he is the media officer at the E David thank you very much uh Lisa and uh thank you very much president and uh commissioner so good morning ladies and

[131:40] gentlemen I'd like to uh give you a very warm welcome to uh this panel discussion on affordable and sustainable housing I'm very pleased that we have a distinguished lineup of uh speakers who will be taken to the FL very soon the first panel for around 35 minutes will focus on steps towards the affordable and sustainable housing platform and the second part of the panel would look at local Solutions but before we start I'm delighted to Welcome to the lecturn the vice president at the EB group responsible for housing yanis sakis the floor is yours

[132:15] [Applause] ladies and gentlemen esteemed colleagues distinguished guests it's both a privilege and a honor to stand before you today as we Mark a pivotal moment in our Collective Journey towards a more sustainable and Equitable Europe today we're not just discussing the future of affordable housing we will try to shape

[132:48] it with affordable and sustainable housing platform the European Investment Bank is taking a bold step forward but we are not doing this alone the European commission and National promotional banks are key Partners in making this Vision a reality so what do we bring to the table as president calvinho mentioned earlier we're diversifying and expanding our support to the entire

[133:21] housing value chain our approach is built in four pillars Partnerships which means working together with the European commission and National promotional Banks to improve access to finance and advice expanding our RS focusing on EU countries where the housing crisis is most severe and where systems are less developed broadening project scope from from innovation in construction to real estate development and home

[133:56] ownership and mobilizing the private sector where we are expanding our client base to include private for-profit promoters to boost Investments but why does this matter because the need is urgent 2.3 million new housing units are needed every single year in the European Union but only 1 Point 4 million building permits are issued annually so you can imagine the incremental uh increase in the Gap

[134:31] that leaves 900,000 units every year as a gap meanwhile to meet our climate targets we must renovate 5 million homes annually so the numbers are huge the European Investment Bank bank is stepping up our housing action plan will increase financing from 3.5 billion in 2024 to PO to 4.3 billion in 2025 and 6 billion by

[135:05] 2026 over the next two years alone we will mobilize 10 billion EUR in financing taking together with private Investments they will this will unlock at least 35 billion EUR for new homes renovation and Innovative Housing Solutions we are not just building more homes we are building better energy efficient and resilient homes and we are moving fast the One-Stop shop portal

[135:36] that we are launching today will make it easier for housing promoters to access finance and expert advice as vice president of the European Investment Bank I'm proud to lead this initiative and I would like to express my gratitude to president calvinho for entrusting me with such a crucial responsibility but this is a collective effort this is about creating a lasting

[136:09] change this is about building a Europe where housing is not a right is not a right is is a right and not a privilege together we can and we will make affordable and sustainable housing a reality for all that is why I'm pleased to share with you our first actions towards this Collective effort please have a look and test our new One-Stop shop online investment P portal for the

[136:40] affordable and sustainable housing thank you very much [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank [Music] you thank you very much uh vice president and um in the spirit of cooperation and working together I'd like to invite the first four panelists to the stage please while we're watching the uh video of the portal the first

[137:15] four panelists to the stage for the uh housing bit thank you thank you you missing one okay

[137:46] super right just checking everyone's uh settled in and uh feeling at home yeah yes brilliant so we can uh we can start as I mentioned so this first panel will look at uh the steps towards the um housing platform the the pan European housing platform now after looking at the the great video earlier on and listening to the speeches I'd really like to hear the views from our panelists today on these first steps towards the the platform and actually Irene you were recently nominated as a chair at the European Parliament on housing I mean what are your views so

[138:18] far on the the steps towards a pan European platform so first of all thank you I thank you uh for this opportunity and uh thank you to the E uh also for the effort that he putting and for this uh for this plan which is certainly very very welcome uh in the parliament with the special committee what we are uh trying to do is first of all to have a real Recon uh say recognition you know analysis of the needs of the European

[138:50] level because right now we do have this macro data that the commissioner mentioned so we know that there is an emergency crisis we know that prices are unaffordable for uh not just the most um you know the lower income but also increasingly the medium uh class so we need to provide answers but uh right now we are still trying to understand what are the problems because every country every region different cities have different problems different needs uh so

[139:23] we are trying to better understand uh and also have a sort of analysis of what are the sources of the possible source of funding at the European level again commissioner mentioned some of the tools that we may already have available to support uh uh Investments uh at uh in the various uh member states so we are now uh looking at all these uh uh possible sources but then we will also need to have a more harmonized uh plan

[139:56] for the future with a stronger resources at the European level that could be matched also public and private so with private resources at at all levels so it's a big effort that we are trying to do but I think it will be vital and important also for example very simply to exchange best practices to know what is working because we have a interesting you know great speakers that may also already uh explain interesting

[140:27] experiments that have been uh done or are being doing done in in different places we need to learn from each other what has worked what is not working what are the problems of the of this real estate market and I may go on because it's true that there is the need of you know millions of new houses but is also true that there are uh hundred hundreds of thousands of uh um you know residential uh homes that are empty not used or used not for residential use but for touristic use so we have different

[141:02] markets that right now are insisting on the same infrastructure on the same number of houses so I think we also need to understand how this Market is working and how we can improve the functioning of the market for the people also by having a good good regulation that help us uh not only easing the permitting part to build more but also to make the market more functional toward what its primary objective which is providing homes for people indeed and it's important to to keep that focus on the primary objective and I I liked what you

[141:38] said earlier on about us already having some of the tools but uh but but is true that maybe we don't have all of them and I understand that your committee produced a report recently on possible solutions to the the housing challenge and I was wondering if you could share a few ideas with with us all here today uh that that would be the outcome of our committee so our committee is a special Committee of the parliament and the objective is to work to produce an initiative report so it's a it's a report that will uh summarize all the findings of our work uh over this year

[142:14] so we hope to be able to deliver in a in a year um along with ideas and proposals uh that could feed into the um European commission plan for affordable housing so we are in in strict uh contact and cooperation with the commissioner uh because we really want to be aligned and I think this will be the key word for the work that uh uh we we need to do alignment so making sure for example that the work of the IB and the paneuropean platform is also aligned

[142:48] with the needs and the work that individual member states are doing that the European commission is doing because in this way we can really be effective in delivering uh with a you know in the most effective way without uh you know uh dis spring energies or duplicating efforts so I think this is of vital importance indeed and not wanting to get ahead of ourselves but very much looking forward to uh seeing the conclusions when the uh report is uh is ready um I wanted to move uh across to to the

[143:20] commission from one side of the the stage to to the other um ma Matthew you were recently appointed us the uh if I get this right the the head of the task force looking at housing at the the European commission I mean from what you've heard so far and what you've seen so far I what are your views on this uh new pan European housing platform well thank you very much it's a delightful to be here and thank you for the opportunity to talk about this from from the perspective of the of the task force it's a huge challenge as I think you've heard both president calvinho and

[143:52] commissioner Jorgenson say in the speech and I entirely endorse what Dr chinali has just said in terms of the way the European Parliament is addressing it she used a great word which is alignment I think the other word is partnership which we are really Keen to develop with cities I'm sitting next to the former deputy mayor of Budapest and with her and also with her new capacity as uh chairman of the committee of the regions um cities are a vital uh Vector of of expertise and knowhow um on housing they're on the front line in many other ways and so the more as as you've just

[144:27] said Dr jali we can we can work together with cities with regions and of course with member states because it's member states that hold the primary responsibility and and of course regional and local actors for housing what we need to do if you like at the commission is find ways to add value um uh and uh that that means working partnership commissioner Jorgenson recently has has met with the 12 major cities which are really putting their wishes on the table we want to see this replicated across Europe in the coming

[144:59] year in our our coordination uh exercise um and uh uh it will be really essential that we do that I think we've seen some great steps announced here today as we move now towards this pan European investment platform because it'll be getting the funding and financing streams right that'll be a crucial part of our overall uh story of success thank you super and um I had a second question for you and I just wanted to uh to double check there because it's uh it's really about the EU helping cities and regions

[145:29] with um enabling conditions and this is what I wanted to double check this enabling conditions um I mean what can we do to improve these enabling conditions for for for the housing's uh market and looking at possible solutions I mean Behind these these important but dry concepts of enabling conditions and uh and the supply and demand crunch as commissioner has just said is people and that's what we need to to get at to try to find the things that are preventing people having access uh to the um to the the affordable and sustainable and

[146:01] decent housing that they need but then what we need to do then is look at those areas where we can add that value I'm sure we're going to hear in a moment about the construction industry but just so let's take that as an example how can we develop a strong strategy which reduces building and renovation costs supports the development of more skilled work workers facilitates access to the single Market boosts the productivity using digitalization using Innovative building techniques that fits perfectly with what the eiib is trying to achieve in its Innovation work under the the the developing action plan and it fits very

[146:35] well with we're trying to achieve you heard the commissioner mention that we're looking at state aid rules we're looking at cohesion policy funds we're going to look at housing speculation and last but not least we're going to look again at short-term accommodation the short-term rental issues which is affecting so many different cities and of course the cities so again back to partnership affordable and social public and private European National regional and local working together to develop I hope a successful menu for the European added value to this crisis many thanks mat

[147:09] Matthew and now i' move across to the uh the presidents of the uh Committee of the regions um I had two questions one looking at I understand that you were previously the vice mayor for Buddy pest yes if correct so just going back to to Budapest because I read some quite startling with Statistics that I think house prices Rose by something like over 150% close to 170% in recent years I mean what could the EU do to uh support cities where house prices are rising substantially yes thank you very much

[147:41] I'm quite lucky because all the key words were said before so I will have a chance to speak more freely so what is the committee of the region we are a lot of locally elected leaders from all across Europe from all Dimensions so we have the small towns we have the islands we have the mountain areas we have the capitals we have all the different experiences because you all talked about the diversity of the problem and we all have this problem

[148:12] okay so what what is my Approach we've set the target together this is why we're here we said in Europe security is very important but security has many dimensions and housing is a so social security issue we want affordable housing for all okay we've set the target we know we want to go we see it on the horizon but the path that is not one path because every single municipality every single

[148:44] Community has different pressures many similarities many patterns are very very similar but it will be many many different paths that these communities will build a lot of local leaders will build we are all very motivated in building this route what do we need we have the understanding we have the set of goals we need a lot of flexibility a lot of adaptability we need tools but these tools should be flexible how I

[149:16] visualize what we have to do together with the pl form with the task force it is like rowing in a boat you know the Dragon Boat you have rower Pairs and a lot of rowers the key is synchrony okay we are not rowing in a lake nothing is stable we are rowing in a very tricky River sometimes lot of water sometimes not many water lot of stones all around if you if we don't watch each other if we don't listen if

[149:52] we don't feel one another what's happening on the European level National level local level what's happening with the business what is happening in the institution so what we will have to do in this boat that we have to be very sensitive to the signals because everything is changing around us we see thermodynamics in action like pulling all complex systems from order to disorder this is what's happening lot of things shaking the system we need stability we will take this role as cities and regions to be a sort of

[150:26] stabilizers in Europe This is why we talk a about lot about cohesion policy because yes we understand the need of stabilizing the borders but we have to be very strong stabilizers from the inside too so this is how I Envision it okay thank you very much in this idea of stabilization of course without the stabilization uh it'll be very difficult to uh to to build something cohesive um and coming back to uh to the committee of the regions and uh a contribution to to the platform itself I mean are there

[150:57] any concrete actions or any concrete measures or anything you're looking at in particular to contribute to the uh the platform as well oh absolutely we are highly motivated as an institution and everybody who is here because they are local leaders Mayors presidents of regions we have with us the mayor of Barcelona who is working on a written contribution because we know Administration is a written thing so we are preparing all our experiences

[151:29] recommendation the tools we have what we can provide the table and what we need but really what we we offer a lot lot of different realities from the small towns to the big capitals from the islands to the mountains but also we need this interactive this synchrony this very sensitive signaling mechanism because the things will be very different in one year two years five years we have to understand there are lot of bottlenecks

[152:02] you know we cities always have plans and then life comes and change everything we have member states in the Euro zone out of Euro Zone interest rates problems a lot of bottl next in supply chain disruption all the tars tariffs bringing a lot of new bottlenecks so we have to always adapt and readapt be flexible with the definitions be flexible in how we work in understanding to have synchrony I'll stop thank you thank you very much so we've talked about regulation we've talked about policy um we've talked

[152:37] about stability um I'd like to hear some views from the industry's point of view and I'm very pleased that we have the the president of let me get this right the European construction industry Federation f um the challenges are different and the the problems are different and the solutions are different but one thing I think it was the president who mentioned this earlier on that uh that we know for sure is that affordability is a constant challenge what can the industry do or from your point of view what could the industry do to to Really make houses

[153:08] more affordable I mean is there is there anything that we can do as as an industry to address the affordability issue yes I I will try to answer and thank first of all I would like to thank you for for inviting us in this important moment and we think that when we speak about construction cost we need to understand that is only part of the whole so we think that we need to have a

[153:40] a global approach on those issues because we have also to consider all the other factors that that has a big impact on the general cost we have to think about the availability of the land the construction cost of the materials the waste the shortage of skilled workers so we need to consider in a more holistic way for sure Innovation and digitalization has a crucial role in for the future in order to also to increase the productivity of our sector but thus

[154:18] from our point of view St start from the beam the business the building model uh the building information model because we need to have a digital plan of buildings this is a starting point and we need to do it if we to introduce in all the construction processes I would like to give some examples of what we can do we have experience with a for example Innovation and digitalization we have experience of some of the most advanced companies in

[154:52] Europe that they have implemented digital Technologies and procedures in their projects and according to some data that we collect we see that they can reduce the errors in the construction site by 20% that means to have uh to reduce the delays and for sure we have a reduction of cost but but also those kind of things require time it's not so easy to implement them we

[155:26] need to up skill and rescale a lot of workers and we need to have a lot of investment and this is again a big big concern from our perspective I'm representing three millions of companies our sector has a lot a lot 95% of the companies has less than 10 employees so we need to keep in mind the big fragmentation that we have in our sector for sure is something that we need to to

[155:57] change but it's not so easy and I think that part of it is natural is inside the characteristic of our of our business model scalability is not so easy because as was said also before previously we have a local market with local challenges local habits is not so easy to export one solution in different other in different other ways another concrete example of what we can do regarding

[156:29] industrialization is the offsite Technologies we have this experience also in France in Italy there are some examples in Germany and in noric countries and according to what we can understand if we will be able to scale up from T to thousand let's say project is possible to save cost to reduce cost for 30% but again I repeat also the site of Technologies is one solution is not

[157:01] the only one solution we need to be very flexible to understand that we need to have a bouquet let's say of different solution for the different needs of the different parts finally I would like also to to underline the problem of the administrative and Regulatory burdens we have we need really was said also before to accelerate all the procedures it makes really not sense that to have to obtain a construction permit sometimes

[157:33] takes more than 5 10 years and this is something that is not only in one country I have experience of Italy but it's not only in my country that we have to face such big problems and we need really to simplify the procedures there are a lot of environmental rules that are not so easy to to comply and so this is my message I let say thank you thank you very much and you've already touched a little bit on Innovation which was going to be my my

[158:05] second question actually I think on in terms of affordability it's true that Innovation uh helps to uh to to reduce costs as well um how could the industry become more Innovative I mean are there any uh are there any tools are there any measures that one could apply to not just focus on the affordability issue but also on on Innovation as well I think that we need for sure a great support we need the Au smart funds we need to involve a lot of private flexible Investments Innovation and digitalization needs investment I think

[158:42] and we welcome the new platform that we heard before for to support affordable houses and we also think that it will be important that uh they will consider the some key points of the former uh Yer plan for example then as was said before the One Stop Shop the idea to put together private and public uh Investments and also the advisory function to the beneficiaries because

[159:17] this is again related with the consistency of our companies that are again I repeat small very small companies a lot of time and we also hope that uh in the Beyond this platform they will get um some inspiration from what the recovery resilience uh facilities has done in the past because uh from our perspective the idea to provide investment based On

[159:49] Target reform was a very good thing it worked it work very well I have experience uh in Italy where the municipalities and the local authorities in general were able to more than double the investment in three years so it's something that with the right instrument is possible to do this is the the good news the problem is that we need a lot a lot of investment are required previously was said that we are speak speaking about 1 million new houses a year maybe it's not the right number as

[160:24] UHA said before but in any case is a huge amount of houses and we are happy to hear that uh the intention to double the financing for the next year from 7 to 15 billions Euro but if you consider that amount just to give you an idea we can just fit the gap for the needs of Luxembourg in terms of housing so it's clear that we need to involve in a different way the private

[160:58] uh private capital and in this is very important to to consider 11 playing field between the public funds to have for the social housing and the private one because is not the case everywhere and again here there are a lot of different around Europe because there are countries in which the housing is a closed system only reserved to the private in other countries is not the

[161:29] case so again is very difficult to have a common starting point and I think that what was mentioned before that is very important to use this year to understand to better understand the local and the differences because otherwise we will face a lot of uh very difficult issues is in my opinion okay super I I was going to mention that I'll I'll open the uh the floor for questions but after the the second panel um and during the second panel we'll be talking about more local Solutions so um

[162:01] before we leave because I see we still have a few more minutes I was going to ask the same question to one of the panelists and you can all respond uh in in a random order but um we've talked about here and now and actually looking at the time I think six minutes ago we officially an announced the uh the platform as a step towards the uh well the portal as a step towards the platform what I'd like to hear from you not about the here and now but looking forward what would be signs of success we launch today we move towards a platform what would be success for you

[162:34] in the future for this platform want to go first again okay I can start thank you a success will be a tool that also works for Budapest also works for Barcelona also works for um uh the Canary Islands also works for um villages in the hills for small towns this is a success we have very ambitious goals we have a lot of needs not enough money never enough money but

[163:10] if our tool is flexible enough if the definition is of social housing is adaptable enough if the partners are there if there's synchrony that then we will see success in many places because this housing crisis is not solved by a few places this can only be solved built the pressure lowered if it happens in many different places in many different volumes okay I will uh make a note of

[163:42] that and actually I'll let you decide who answers next but while I'm taking notes um I'd like to to hear more responses on ESS the future well thank you I think the commission should go last generally speaking but um to to pick it up um I'm I'm going to be measured in what I say here because I think we've heard profoundly passionately why housing is so important for European citizens but we need to recall the primary responsibility is for member

[164:14] states and regions and cities so how can we best support those efforts So my answer is to really have taken in the course of this mandate under the leadership of commissioner Jorgenson measurable steps towards helping address both the supply and the demand side uh and produce more affordable sustainable and decent housing in every part of the European Union where this is necessary and that's not to say that the European commission is coming as like a messiah to fix all the problems we are here as the messiah's assistant to try to fix

[164:47] these things on the ground in a measure way thank you can I okay uh of course I agree with everything that has been said before but if I may add something for me success would be to see that we are achieving some concrete results for the people and I just want to give you a few examples uh just few months ago um I met a a a young talented boy that was

[165:17] admitted in a very prestigious University uh in one of our top cities I'm not going to mention neither the University or the city but he said that he will pick uh he cannot go that he will renounce that because his family cannot afford to pay for a room in that City and of course to pay for the books for the school and everything and and and things like that and he was not the first one I heard a a a young woman talented woman that couldn't accept

[165:49] internship because it was paid too low compared to how much she would have to pay for the rent in that other big city uh I've heard younger families that were pushed out from the cities where they were born and raised because they couldn't afford to leave there okay so I hope that all one of us keep in mind that our primary objectives is to make our cities livable again for the European citizens because otherwise we

[166:20] will have failed our [Applause] mission from my perspective could be very important if the platform is um through the platform platform is possible to do realistic processes to go in that direction because I think that uh we need not to add the bureaucracy we need to have instruments and I think also it's important through the platform will be possible to collect the different experience that we have because sometimes we have nothing to

[166:55] invent but we have just to use things that are in place and I think that going around Europe is possible to find very good best practice and the platform has also to be let's say a library of best practice to in which the single companies the municipalities can go and understand if something is possible to do I think that those could be a good role for the platform many thanks thank you thank you

[167:28] very much I've been uh noting this and uh I'll I'll do a quick summary at the the end of the the event but um I'm very much looking forward to to hearing examples from Barcelona from Zagreb and from uh other cities as well I very much enjoyed this panel discussion I hope you did too thank you very much to his team speakers and please join me in applausing for all thank thank [Applause] [Music] you I'd now like to ask the other panelists to join for the uh housing

[167:59] panel on looking at local Solutions please thank you please uh join me on the stage um I would say

[168:35] okay welcome panelist after that very um I I would say not only interesting but also thought-provoking discussion earlier on the the platform now we'll look at Solutions and these Solutions will be very very local Solutions so uh I'll have a quick look at my notes for these um I was going to start with Croatia because I understand that Croatia is working on the country's first ever strategy for affordable housing um how are these efforts helping to uh increase Investments for uh for housing on the ground in in

[169:06] Croatia uh good day David to you and to the dear panelists I thank a for the invitation to be a part of this very successful and use useful uh Forum I'm glad to be here as as the representative of the government of the Republic of Croatia but also of the ministry of regional development and um EU funds uh well yes you stated well uh Croatia has just adopted the first ever National plan on housing policy uh midterm strategic act um which is um the

[169:38] first uh known on housing uh on housing policy uh with the purpose to provide catian citizens uh affordable affordable housing but also to um fulfill certain determined um Quality um quality standards uh the ultimate goal of uh this um document is um to of course uh decrease um decrease the dep population of U of the citizens allow

[170:09] younger families uh to have affordable affordable housing also allow elderly people to to have uh life of high high quality and also to mobilize uh work work uh Force um a very successful analysis of demographic uh social and economic uh data was done and uh the point of the national plan is uh to provide each and every citizen of uh Croatia safe long-term rent or

[170:43] affordable affordable housing but to come to the conclusions we had to go a bit uh a bit more into the reasons uh why there are so many problems with uh affordable housing or uh finding a home for Croatian citizens uh uh especially uh especially the young ones and the reasons were found in a couple of couple of things first of all statistics say that Croatian uh people leave their

[171:16] parental Homes at an average age of 31.8 me included and uh the EU is is about uh 26 26.3 secondly uh Croatia is also highly positioned in terms of overcrowding rate overcrowding rate is of the households is 31.3% which is rather High uh looking at the EU level which is 16.8 8% and then the third reason is U very well known probably to to the the

[171:50] colleag pan from Barcelona is tourism uh T tourism is the massive engine that that moves uh Croatia it's um an economic booster uh but also causes problems with the rate of uh the rate of the real estate prices the rate of rentals especially in touristical sites and um and the fact that in touristical sites especially the ones which are cultural heritage like the ones that I'm coming from the city of duik uh there are no places to buy

[172:23] anymore and there are no places to rent anymore because everything is touristically BAS based so the government uh we should not only liely on the measures that government is planning in the National plan uh to maintain and to manage the buildings to have buildings um energetically efficient to have green infrastructure to help disabled people in their buildings but we also have to work with the local community so they work on limiting further increase of shortterm rental of

[172:55] residential units we believe that is also uh also crucial the national plan uh on affordable housing of CIA has an action plan and just to to acquaint you with a couple of things that action plan um says a couple of measures which are inside first one which is very popular we will um um Croatian citizens uh up to 45 years buying a new property will not pay real estate tax and they will pay only 50% of the vit which is a very popular popular

[173:31] measure secondly uh we are planning to activate all all the vacant properties uh the statistics say today there are more than 600,000 vacant properties in Croatia and the need is about 200,000 third we are strongly planning to work work with the local communities uh uh local communities um trying to uh trying to uh propose uh building of residential units which are going to half be affordable housing and half rent also the plan is to work with

[174:06] private investors offering them easier procedures uh easier procedures uh in return the in in their building of residential units uh V are planning uh they are supposed to plan a percentage for affordable affordable uh housing also uh big a big point is going to be put on um student dorms uh making them more making more student dorms with more capacities so students are supposed to live in student dorms not in uh

[174:40] residential units uh it's the same thing with uh elderly people we are trying to work on uh making uh homes for elderly people people uh of more quality so they can also leave their residential units and uh live a life of quality in U in uh their homes uh those are some of the highlights of the of the action plan and um it sums up to numbers at the end um for all the activities which are planned up to 2030 uh Croatia will need about 2 billion billion Euro uh and uh we are

[175:16] planning to uh we we are planning uh to to fund it from the national National budget e funds loans but also as we are looking on affordable rent we are uh counting in the rent that's going to be uh in uh the rent that's going be going to be paid for the affordable affordable housing these are very ambitious plans and um yeah I I really uh yeah very excited about uh the the outlook for uh for creation affordable homes um I mean as I was uh busy scribbling down some uh

[175:49] some statistics I I thought that maybe the statistics would be similar for for other cities and actually I'd like to move over to to Barcelona now to the the May of bar Barcelona um Barcelona has some ambitious plans to uh to reclaim the the city to to make it more affordable for for residents would you be able to tell us a little more about your your plans for Barcelona please yes thank you thank you thank you for the invitation to the European Investment Bank and especially for the president miss calvinho and we welcome the the

[176:22] announcement who has made the president to increase available funds to the to the cities and to the states to 10 billions because housing is obviously a social emergency because our city is simply because our cities cannot afford homes in their own neighborhoods that's it the facts are clear housing prices have increased by 50% across Europe in the last 10 years so we we have to change the current

[176:54] rules with urgency uh because uh I think we have two models in Europe the first model depends on the free market alone it assumes more building will lower prices automatically this is failed the market does not provide affordable housing where needed on the other hand the second model recognizes housing as a right that requires protection it understands we need courage to intervene the housing market so Barcelona has chosen the

[177:31] second path um we act through two big objectives first we are accelerating the construction of social housing we plan to grow our public housing stock up to 24,000 Dell LS in new urban areas in my city and second and this is very specific of Barcelona we are implementing better regulations we have imposed a rent cap thanks to a national legal framework

[178:06] because Spain is an example of this new approach to housing on Revolution the Spanish government passed a pioneering housing law this law created the concept of rent controlled areas where housing Supply or demand are imbalanced and Barcelona government declared our city to be eligible for this production in fact it was the first decision I took as a me so we are standing to see the results

[178:39] uh in rental prices but by the moment a 3 uh 2% decrease in the third quarter of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023 on the other hand we we have we need a smart Market re uh intervention regulation in housing markets must be done with intelligence our goal is to add simplification and avoid bureaucracy reduce red tape simplif

[179:13] simplify procedures create clear rules for all players markets need rules to function correctly smart regulation creates stability and certainty obviously we not we need uh public and private partnership we need private investment too so we must stimulate private funding for for affordable housing create profitable models and serve social needs and go hand inand with the private sector

[179:48] and finally you mentioned tourist and the problem the the massification of the tourist in our cities so we have we have taken a important decision in Barcelona by 2028 tourist apartment license will be eliminated in my city this means that potentially 10,000 properties will return to the city's residents for example a

[180:19] BNB we work together in this plan with regional and National and European level we all but cities need more resources and to be more decisive housing is an European Democratic challenge now especially in this context thank you thank you thank you very much um mayor um I I noted a few things there especially this idea of a social emergency in it and it really is but I'm

[180:53] I'm sort of reassured and very pleased to hear that both from Zagreb and also from Barcelona that uh you both have very ambitious plans and uh and clear targets so I I think there are certainly signs of uh of hope I had another question about um another announcement that I'm not sure has been made or is due to be made but it's around a mayor's Alliance for affordable housing and I understand that you're also working on this as well is that uh correct David yes thank you for the invitation um uh I represent uh CDP the

[181:27] Italian national promotional bank but also uh today we're here as European long-term investors Association many other banks are here with us today so I'm I'm privileged to share a bit uh the Italian case with a a look on the European perspective so um in Italy um CDP has been working on soci affordable housing not so recently actually since 2010 TP is very old uh founded in 1850 even before the country was United um we

[181:58] have been historically supporting social infrastructure by collecting actually retail savings through the postal system so pass books and bonds retail bonds U by citizens and residents of Italy and invest in them in Social infrastructure originally exclusively through lending to local authorities and this business model has grown uh over and over uh during the years and therefore uh what do we do under social and afford for to support social and affordable housing we have established an intermediated equity

[182:31] model uh quite unique very successful I have been privileged to witness it growing over the years uh in response in fact to the legal framework that the Italian government passed in 2008 on Ed resen soal so social and affordable housing our model is a fund of funds model um and we have a dedicated asset management company CDP real assets that I like to describe as a PPP itself because the shareholders of CDP real

[183:05] assets are CDP the parent company of course but also uh the private uh uh investors that co-invest with us in this model and in particular uh the other shareholders of CDP real asset are the ABI the association of the Italian Banks and akri the association of the C Italian that um are also um shareholders of GDP uh and why is it a beautiful model because um it pursues a national interest addressing social affordable housing problem at National level with

[183:40] local Solutions so I come back to a concept that has been described a lot before and we do that because uh the private Co investors Co invest at the fund level but more importantly at the local level where the local interest that they pursue is present so to give you an example f s Pao is co-investing with us in Piedmont uh cariplo is co-investing with us in in Lombardy and so on so forth um this model is self- sustaining

[184:11] today so uh only in the third new fund recently launched uh we have started blending in uh U funds um the trade-off is that uh the banking Foundation accept um let's say uh lower uh returns than other investors would do so blending EU funds in our model could help on one hand increase um affordability especially in the south of Italy where the construction costs are are high uh

[184:43] and the affordability is less than what we have in the north and also the risking uh the our fund of funds F increasing attractiveness for the so much needed private Capital uh ideally uh in a way that the EU funds subordinate to the private sector that can then uh receive that Comfort needed and the Level Playing Field that I think Pier was mentioning before so over the years um our strategic approach to housing has evolved on what we call the 4S model so from social housing for

[185:18] families to student housing more recently senior housing and the novelty of the new strategic plan is what we call service housing for young employees um nurses people that move to Milan for example and cannot afford to pay the rent at market prices and the common denominator of this 4S model is that we provide we combine what we call the hardware components so revamping typically revamping of existing buildings or building new uh dwellings with a software component so Community

[185:49] Services with Community managers that ensure we create inclusive communities and not ghettos as of today CDP has committed over 1.5 billion euros leveraging three billion from other private and institutional investors and CDP real asset are dedicated as a management company today manages these three fund of funds out of which um fia the first one founded in 2010 um has invested in nearly 36 local Regional funds that have financed 25 uh sorry uh 255 projects created more than 12,000

[186:25] dwellings across Italy I cannot project the map but it's fascinating if you see it how we cover from north to south all all our regions in the most recent fun of funds the F we have invested with the support of the invest guarantee under the social investment and skills window and established a partnership with with the IB group with the e um in particular that for the first time is investing 300 million in our funds and in this asset class in Italy to give you a sense of

[187:00] the social impact 95% of the beneficiaries belong to eligible families that cannot afford paying full rent 95 four 94% of our total portfolio consists of affordable social dwellings um 48% uh over the total are regenerated buildings so nearly half of the portfolio is not reinvent building new uh dwellings but refurbishing existing ones 75% of our investments are um directed towards energy efficient assets

[187:34] and 100% of our investments pursue a carbon free approach so in 15 years uh FIA has uh supported U the construction of of and refurbishment of dwellings affordable all over Italy I will mention three example that also help me explain how we combine uh let's say uh support in in terms of advisory um and also Co investing with the EUR the i group because one first um uh project is in

[188:07] Milan in the former Expo area where we have developed um a neighborhood kashina merata during the time Expo was organized so it helped also supporting people that were working on site uh and the kashina merata that is part of a wider Urban regeneration project uh more recently um in the same area in cooperation with AABB we are co-investing co- financing the construction of the new Campus of the University of Milan so what we what this is to say

[188:43] that we look at housing but we look at Urban regeneration ation in a broader perspective and here comes in also the support of invest advisory Hub and the joining forces with the other European partners and the private sector to transform areas of the cities that when I was a a little girl were really horrible um in Turin uh we are revitalizing the former Olympic Village that remained abandoned for many many years um uh converting seven buildings

[189:14] into nearly 400 temporary residency for students and one last example is in senior housing we call it the blue Space Project for senior housing where we have combine uh dwellings with tele medicine services with Polyclinic jamell in Rome super in fact you answered both of the questions that I was about to uh to ask you so thank you very much for that very efficient response and I've been busy scribbling away and uh really look

[189:46] looking at revamping new dwellings and regeneration which I think is uh is very important the other thing that I I didn't mention because I didn't ask my second question is that um partnership with national promotional Banks like GDP is incredibly important uh it's uh crucial for the success of this pan European housing platform so we're very very pleased that uh that you here today and that you've already mentioned the benefits of working very very closely to together another crucial partner in fact for this platform is housing Europe and I'm very pleased that uh Ben is here

[190:17] today um but in terms of uh scalable solutions that we can look at on a local level I mean are there examples from housing Europe from your members that uh that you would like to to share with the uh the audience today yes thank you David and thank you for the invitation today uh what we heard earlier on was that what we need is uh a new production more than a million more than we are doing today in in Europe uh and uh also uh what you Martina what you mentioned was

[190:50] refurbishment and renovation so what we need is scale scalable Solutions and what we have done earlier on has often been also in in respect with the eib has been projects uh in in different European countries and what we have to look at now is to look at the existing intermediaries uh in the European countries uh and to use them to channel capital and funding at the local level to have this scale because we have to go from Individual projects seen from European capital lenberg or Brussels or

[191:26] whatever it is uh to use the existing uh local intermediaries in in in the countries it could be uh C Depo in France for instance uh it could in my own country uh Denmark could be uh the Lance speak font which is a national uh Wide Fund you can use there and other examples in the other European countries and in some countries you we do not have these intermediates uh and then the EI I should in your case Martina could be guarantees from the from the EI uh to to

[192:02] make the scale at the local level uh in in uh in in Italy for instance so this scalability is so important uh and bring different parts together what we've done in housing Europe uh we have we have a responsible Housing Finance working group and what we have done there is to bring Partners together local housing associations uh local institutions uh Banks uh together also bringing EI uh to

[192:33] the table uh and in fact okay when you bring all these Partners together concretely to look to look at what is going on the different countries and make Concrete Solutions so Civic in Spain for instance it has been a result where we have scaled up there in the in the Spanish case uh and in fact have made hundreds and hundreds of new homes which was which was not possible if it not have brought the partners together there so scalability using the local

[193:07] intermediat and uh using also uh the means of guarantees to scale up at the local level so it would be the first advice from houseing Europe thank you thank you bon had a follow-up question actually on this because I understand that this is something of uh special concern in particular to uh to the members of the association in terms of um inequalities in the housing market and social inclusion are there success stories or examples or something on a on a wish

[193:38] list that you would like to uh to mention today for I think I think we yes David I think we all have a very very big uh wish list here uh and heard it earlier on also from uh from different people uh housing for young people in the earlier panel we heard this U very sad example that uh you have uh you have been granted uh a student that you could access the university but you you are not able to to have a home in

[194:11] one of the biggest cities uh in Europe so when we are looking uh at housing inequality it was also mentioned by uh the commissioner it is about people it is about the social Fabric in in the society and what we are looking at now is a very wide scale from middle inome families key workers in the bigger cities and to the most vulnerable people and homeless people so it's a very very wide range uh that the housing crisis uh

[194:42] affects right now in Europe that's why we have to act very very fast and we have to look into systemic Solutions uh why we sitting here and why we're discussing this today is because we haven't made longlasting systemic solution in many of the European countries and right now I think we are facing a situation where we're looking to okay scale it has to be fast many uh people they are in need right now so we have to move really fast but when we move fast sometimes we break things but

[195:15] we do not have to make this same Solutions as we did before because some of the solutions when you look at the different European countries in fact in the 50s we had good Solutions and we broke them down uh in in in some countries so we have now to make sustainable longlasting solution and it's green sustainability and first of all it's also social sustainability we have to to look into so it is Solutions uh for tomorrow uh and for the next 30

[195:46] and 50 years we have to create right now and we have to look into some of the good examples because we have many examples uh in I think we when we count in housing Europe we have 23 different uh finance and housing systems uh among our members we have our members have 25 million affordable and and and social dwellings in Europe we 23 uh different systems uh and when we look closely into the systems I think we have about 10 or

[196:20] less systems which are in fact sustainable uh in the long run so when eiib make the funding we also have to make a conditionalities to improve and to push to uh and uh to to increase the amount of the system which are functioning in Europe and the good examples there you can make an e you can make some conditional Isis and one of the conditional Isis which I think is very important is to have these revolving funds to reuse the funds again

[196:52] uh and again uh in my little uh country Denmark in fact we have a sustainable system we have uh housing for students and they can afford uh uh uh to to live uh in in our homes uh and the key thing here is nonprofits it's not a big subsidies from the states at all it is nonprofit system and revolving funds so you create funds from the beginning and reuse them again and again and again and

[197:24] again and I think it's one of it's one of the lessons to be learned at least from The Dana system and there is also other revolving systems in Europe uh and and try to say okay these are some of the best systems how can we scale them uh and use them as examples in other conss thank you thank you very much and um it was very very good to to hear these examples from uh from zarre from Barcelona from Italy from Denmark from across Europe I mean now I'm just having a look at the time I think uh we have the opportunity I'm looking to see if we

[197:56] can take a few questions um if we can take some uh questions from the floor um there's a roving mic uh one of our colleagues uh will be coming to you if you could please raise your hand to say where you're from who you work for um if possible if you could also uh pick somebody to one of the panelists to answer the question that would be very helpful we have the fourth panelist here and the other four panelists from the first panel are also still here thank you thank you so much can you hear me my name is B milovich and thank you um European Investment Bank for inviting

[198:30] also another EU institution European economic and social committee uh and uh we are working with many stakeholders with European Parliament uh we heard of very good interventions with commission uh Matthew Baldwin we heard uh previously on and uh also there are many interlinkages uh as commissioner Jorgensen mentioned uh with energy uh transport and also infrastructure because housing is really horizontal topic uh from European economic and

[199:01] social committee perspective uh we are working currently on the opinion that is linked with cost of living crisis because we need to also mention that there are still people living in energy poverty uh I heard data that some people can cannot afford um they are paying from their household income 40% and sometimes even more so it's really um increasing statistics in Europe another opinion that I would like to mention uh and we are working on it's request from the Danish presidency the upcoming

[199:36] presidency in the council uh affordable um European affordable housing plan the contribution of Civil Society so again we will bring all the stakeholders also many of you uh to our house uh in Brussels uh to bring up also these uh topics in the Danish presidency and upcoming um term um I would like to also say that ESC is Keen to contributing to development and the future implementation of Europe affordable housing plan and also European strategy

[200:11] for housing uh and construction and I think some of the speak ERS mention many statistical data but I think we also need to turn attention and I think uh zinka you was mentioning that quality of housing this is something that we need to turn attention because there are almost 20% of European citizens that are living in O overcrowded uh apartments or houses and they cannot afford really um their uh room or or the space so I would like to

[200:44] thank very much uh speakers for for your contributions and I'm sure we will meet in Brussels for the for the next upcoming events that we are planning thank you thank you thank you very very much and uh looking forward to the uh the event in in Brussels I think um yes thank you we have another question hello my name is G kach and I'm the M of Budapest I'm honored to join you this very important discussion European institutions National governments local authorities and the housing market players really

[201:15] need to work together to solve the housing crisis the housing crisis is one of the biggest challenges faces facing Europe but we need targeted and effective measures to handle it but let's never forget we are living a period of poly crisis the housing crisis is closely linked to The Climate crisis and the problems of the of uh social cohesions this is particularly true in Budapest According to some calculations

[201:46] Budapest has the ver ratio between the salaries and rents of any mayor European city high property prices are driving people out of the city and the daily commute makes up half of the car traffic in Budapest this is this undermined our fighting against the climate crisis the high that also contributes dramatically to the reproduction of social inequalities so we need to act now but the financial problem problems

[202:17] limits our opportunities but I have a good news because uh Budapest soon will be most likely own the most valuable Brownfield site in the city this is a nearly 1 square kilometers of land has the potential to become a green affordable and and green uh new neighborhood I'm grateful for opportunity to discuss with this project uh with the EI I eiib Leaders

[202:50] with regard this particular project I would like to draw attention three aspect that may also be important from a pan European perspective firstly we should pay attention to use the the use of urban Brownfield sites especially if they are public publicly owned one of the reason of the housing crisis is that the urban population is growing but there is not enough space to build new home homes in the cities demand is therefore

[203:22] increasing faster than Supply pushing up prices by freeing up Brownfield sites we can increase Supply and reduse prices and in addition brunfield site are usually not very far from the urban core so they are ofer an excellent opportunity for sustainable Urban Development secondly we need to recognize that the housing crisis is too big to solve by public investment Alone part of the EU fund should be used to create new development areas in the cities for example by creating the

[204:00] necessary infrastructure in this way we can encourage rural estate developments that fit in the with the objectives of the Cities finally the pan European investment platform would be very helpful in expanding affordable hous loans at below Market race would greatly help the cities to build partnership with the markitors to provide affordable housing for the citizens thank you for your attention thank you and um

[204:30] unfortunat please go ahead unfortunately we're we're running out of time um but uh I think we probably have H time for one last question one thing I would like to say most of the panelists who are here stay for lunch stay for the afternoon so you'd have opportunity to uh to speak to them I'll also be here for the the rest of the day as well and more than happy to uh to take any questions you would have but uh I think we have one more question uh towards the back please thank you David my name is Luca kight I'm the deputy mayor of the city of Zagreb Croatia uh first of all I'd like

[205:03] to congratulate you on organizing the conference and on launching the platform today and then I'd like to congratulate the keynote speakers um and the the panelists of both panels I think we got some very valuable insights on on this topic uh I must say that we as a city of Zagreb have a very uh very fruitful collaboration with eiib during our mandate we have signed um at the

[205:34] beginning of last year we have signed a framework loan for various projects uh from very uh from Green transition digital transition infrastructure Etc and um at the end of L last year we have signed um the um technical assistant agreement for um uh for housing especially for housing uh and of course um we have some um uh agreement related

[206:04] to public transport etc etc so but coming back to housing um I think that we have a lot to learn and a lot to gain from EI um this um uh this new uh agreement would help us this new collaboration would help us to expand both in terms of uh quantity and in terms of quality and in terms of affordability right now uh in in the

[206:35] city of Zagreb we have only 2 and a half% of housing stock that is Affordable uh because these apartment units are owned by the city and they are affordable uh but we want to expand our housing stock and uh this is why we collaborate with eiib and first and foremost through the technical assistant technical assistance uh through which we are going to learn about best practices in the region and try to apply them uh to to our case to the case of Zagreb so

[207:09] thank you for the conference and thank you for the support and I hope that we will continue to to collaborate in the years to come thank you thank you um before I hand over to uh to Lisa I just wanted to say um thank you very much a huge thanks uh to the president the the vice president the commissioner to the panelists we have on the stage the panelists in the front row as well for the questions contributions um please do try the the portal I understand that it goes live next month

[207:40] we've had a lot of interesting discussions lot of helpful input as we work towards a pan European platform thank you very much everyone thank you for your contribution I'd like to suggest a round of applause to our panelist before I hand over to Lisa thank [Applause] you and a round of applause to David thank you well I'm not going to keep you much longer than 30 seconds to say thank you for sitting I know we all need to move we need to get some daylight and some food but we'll be back in here to start

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