Press Release Immediate Release 20 February 2008

BRUSSELS, 20 FEBRUARY 2008 — Brussels' leading free market think tank is delighted to announce the appointment as a Fellow, with immediate effect, of Jeremy Nicholson.

Jeremy Nicholson, currently Director of the Energy Intensive Users Group, will head CNE's new Energy programme.

Stephen Pollard, CNE President, said:

"Jeremy is the perfect man to head this new development for CNE. Energy is critical to all aspects of EU policy and as Brussels' leading free market think tank, CNE has much to offer. Under Jeremy's direction, we will be focusing on four areas:

• Squaring the Climate Change Circle. How can the EU ETS be reformed to avoiding displacing industrial production (and emissions) to other to other parts of the world, and hence provide a model that might credibly be adopted by developed and developing economies globally?
• Energy Security. The EU is heavily dependent on imported oil and gas - reserves are increasingly concentrated in states that are not committed to free trade, some of them politically unstable, others fundamentally hostile to the interests of western liberal democracies. - how should the EU respond to the threat this poses?
• Liberalising EU energy markets - third time lucky? How should the EU liberalise its energy markets - and what will the consequences be for consumers and the economy if it fails?
• Renewables - targeting the wrong solution The EU wants 20% of energy consumption to be met from renewables by 2020, double the current share. Would it be better to abandon targets and let markets determine the energy mix?

I am thrilled to welcome Jeremy to CNE. We are delighted to have so experienced and respected a thinker on these key issues heading our programme."

Jeremy Nicholson is Director of the Energy Intensive Users Group, which campaigns for secure, competitive energy supplies for UK industry. He trained as a civil engineer with consultants Sir William Halcrow & Partners, where he specialised in infrastructure and regulatory projects for water and energy utilities and their regulators. He spent four years with a group of French-owned water companies as an economic analyst working on demand forecasting, business planning and economic regulation before joining the EIUG, initially as their Policy Adviser, in 2000. He is a Board member of IFIEC Europe (the International Federation of Industrial Consumers), a member of Ofgem's Environmental Advisory Group, BERR's Business Climate Change & Energy Group, and a Fellow of the Energy Institute.

Contact:
Stephen Pollard: stephen.pollard@cne.org
Jeremy Nicholson: jeremy.nicholson@cne.org