Opening Remarks

Honorable Commissioner Shua, Your Excellency Abdullah Balala, Your Excellency Majit Al-Sui, Honorable Janis Takiris, Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, assalamu alaykum. It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the second edition of the EUGCC Finance and Investment Forum. Your presence today reflects the strength of the EU UAE partnership and the shared ambition that unites us on this important occasion. We are especially honored to partner with Abu Dhabi finance week held under the esteemed patronage of his highness shikhalat bin Muhammad bin zed al- nahan crown prince of Abu Dhabi an event that is rapidly becoming one of the world's most dynamic financial gatherings. I would like to thank the Abu Dhabi Global Markets team for their outstanding collaboration alongside the EU delegation, my team and uh and the EUGCC green transition project for delivering this event together.

The relationship between the European Union and the United Arab Emirates is entering a new phase, more strategic, more comprehensive, and more closely aligned than ever before. It signals the immense, still untapped potential for joint projects and deeper cooperation across the Gulf and the wider Mina region. The European Union is the UAE's leading investment partner and its second largest trading partner with annual investments now reaching approximately 328 billion euros. A future free trade agreement and a strategic partnership agreement that we just launched this morning could unlock even greater shared gains. Although COP 30 outcome fell short of the EU expectations, it still sent a strong signal of the international community's enduring commitment to the global energy transition.

More than 122 parties have now submitted their nationally determined contributions, representing almost 75% of global emissions and underscoring the broad commitment to achieving the Paris agreement's objectives through domestic action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Today's event highlights the EU's sustained engagement with the UAE and other Gulf partners in advancing this effort. The EU and its member states are global leaders in green transition financing while the UAE stands among the world's most dynamic investors particularly in renewable energy across the Mina region. The Abu Dhabi Finance Week alone has gathered leaders exceeding $60 trillion dollar in assets under management. Together, this is a powerful force for a change.

We already see success stories across the region with European financial institutions and UAE and Gulf investors partnering on energy transition projects in Egypt, Morocco, and beyond. I'm particularly pleased that many of the leaders behind these achievements are here with us today among our distinguished speakers. So let us take this opportunity to look more closely at how these partnership work in practice and to explore how we can further mobilize sustainable investment to accelerate to accelerate the energy transition across the Mena region and beyond. Now is the time to build on this momentum and focus on concrete high impact projects.