Today, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and her Belgian counterpart Hadja Lahbib are hosting the 6th German-Belgian Conference at the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. The event is dominated by current challenges, particularly climate change and the energy transition. The goal of the conference is for German and Belgian partners to develop joint solutions and approaches.

Since 2009, the German-Belgian Conference has brought together decision-makers from the worlds of politics, civil society, business and academia of both countries at the highest level in order to promote and spotlight exchange on current issues.

Fit for the future – focuses of the conference

Today, renowned experts will discuss with conference participants in four panel sessions

• how we can better support countries that are already being hit particularly hard by the impacts of climate change – not least in the interests of global stability and security;
• how in the course of the energy transition we can prevent the emergence of new dependencies in the supply of raw materials;
• how, against the backdrop of the current energy crisis, we can work together to safeguard gas supplies more effectively and at the same time accelerate the transition to non-fossil energy sources – at both national and European level;
• how Belgium and Germany can join forces to make available sufficient amounts of green hydrogen instead of gas for industry, transport and consumers in Europe in the future.

Germany and Belgium are key partners on energy issues. For example, pipelines from Zeebrugge are supplying Germany with gas, with the prospect of supplying hydrogen in future. The two countries also cooperate closely in the area of offshore wind energy use.

In addition to issues concerning energy supply, a central role at the conference is occupied by international climate policy. One aspect of this is the relationship between the global climate crisis and international security policy. Following the conference, the findings will be presented in a joint declaration, which will propose further ideas for close German-Belgian cooperation.