Team size: Ten

Which recent political, economic, or regulatory changes have impacted the company and the team the most?

The EU Green Deal and the concomitant EU’s energy and climate targets for 2030 are real game changers for our company’s overall strategy. DESFA, along with all European Natural Gas Transmission System Operators, are called upon to perform their duty and contribute to green growth. Natural gas is expected to play the role of a ‘transition fuel’ due to its environmentally friendly and financially sustainable nature. One of the key principles taken into consideration for the new ten-year NNGS Development Plan was to achieve the aims of National Energy Planning. Securing new competitive sources of supply in the Greek and Balkan market is at the core of DESFA’s investment plan for the coming years, responding to the ongoing national effort to phase out the use of lignite as the source of electricity generation and to develop the Small-Scale LNG market. DESFA’s new investment for the extension of the NNGS towards Western Macedonia via a high-pressure pipeline demonstrates the company’s effort to prepare for the future, establishing pipelines for the transmission of renewable gases.

In what ways do you see the in-house legal role evolving in your region over the next few years?

In-house counsel are seen as essential business partners for the organisations. They are now expected to have both legal knowledge and business capacity to combat against the current climate of ever-changing technology and legislation. Therefore, constant learning is essential for in-house lawyers to progress in this environment to develop their own expertise whilst catching up with the speed of technological progress. Communication skills will be increasingly emphasised in the coming years as in-house legal is expected to have more interactions with their stakeholder than before by taking an active role of reducing business risks and ensuring legal compliance. Explaining strategic objectives of the company to other functions, the legal departments need to adapt to the innovative technologies that are comprehensible and familiar to their colleagues including concise summaries, diagrams, power point presentations.

How has the increasing consciousness of climate change and sustainability affected the company and the team’s priorities?

Climate change and sustainability have been increasingly brought into the company’s spotlight for their business strategy. EU Taxonomy, in particular, constitutes to one of the most significant factors influencing companies’ activities while assessing new business opportunities and investments in terms of their substantial contribution to the six objectives for the environment: climate change mitigation, sustainable use of water and marine source, pollution, prevention, climate change adaptation, circular economy, healthy ecosystem. Classifying each business plans to satisfy the criteria undoubtedly affected decision-making process of the company and its overall operations.