Marie-Pierre Gramaglia, Minister of Public Works, Environment and Urban Development, has unveiled two projects representing Monaco’s investment in solar energy.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, June 29, she said that these are the measuring of Principality’s solar footprint and the setting-up of a SMEG/government joint venture to purchase power from renewable energy sources.
The aim is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase local production of renewable energy. An interactive map, available at www.cadastresolaire.mc, identifies the potential for capturing sunlight, the surface area for solar panel installation and the annual production for each roof.
Marie-Pierre Gramaglia said: “It will offer owners, trustees and individuals the opportunity to quickly visualise data for the deployment of solar panels on the roof of their building.”
The second part of the presentation focused on the creation of a SMEG/government joint venture. The objective is to invest in renewable electricity generating assets outside Monaco.
“If we want to develop or acquire green power plants abroad, mainly in France at the moment, we need to increase the share of imported green electricity.”
Thomas Battaglione, Managing Director of SMEG, added: “Monaco will contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions in the countries in which the assets will be located, while at the same time maintain long-term control over its procurement costs.”
He added, “The first asset to be acquired has already been identified – a photovoltaic power plant located in the Var with average production of 5GWh/year.”
Minister Gramaglia concluded this presentation by stressing: “These two actions are exemplary and bear witness to the determination of the Prince’s Government to meet the objectives set by His Serene Highness the Sovereign Prince.”
The Monegasque Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (IMSEE) has published a breakdown of employees in Public Service in Monaco showing a number of interesting trends.
On December 31, 2016, 4,528 people were employed in the Public Service, representing 8.6 percent of the salaried population of the Principality.
Fifty-seven percent of the total were men, 65 percent were French, and one out of two lives in Monaco. Half of the workforce is over 45 years old.
The Government Administration and the Town Hall account respectively for 76 percent and 15 percent of employees: the Department of the Interior has the largest staff, with 1,873 employees, 54 percent of the total number in Government Administration.
A total of 610 men and 777 women occupy Category A posts, and these positions are 46 percent occupied by Monegasques, up from 43 percent in 2013.
While just over half of the total reside in the Principality – 50.2 percent – this decreases each year for the benefit of neighbouring municipalities. The full focus can be found online.
Travel Daily, the online resource for travel professionals, has reported that Australians have become an important group of visitors to the Principality.
Regional Director of the Monaco Tourism and Convention Bureau (DTC), Alison Roberts-Brown, said that Australian visitors were now in the top ten in terms of the origin of visitors.
“When we started our job here in around 2010 we were number 40, now Australia is around number nine for arrivals into Monaco,” she said.
The DTC continues to be very proactive in promoting the Principality across the world, particularly in Asia and in the Americas, north and south. While convention and incentive travel is performing well, the DTC’s presentations also draw attention to the range of cultural attractions in Monaco.
Monaco’s newest art gallery, La Galerie Birch Monaco, opened Tuesday night to rave reviews from visitors who embarked on an “artistic adventure” in its charming premises on the Rock.
Dynamic Danish duo Anette Birch and her daughter Caroline, 20, welcomed more than 70 people to the opening of their new gallery – almost 70 years to the day that their father and grandfather, Borge Birch, founded Galerie Birch in Copenhagen.
Ms Birch said: “It is wonderful to finally be able to share my father’s legacy with the people of Monaco, my adoptive home. I have spent a lot of time planning the new gallery here on the Rock, I walked the streets of the Principality looking for the ideal location, and I believe I found it here on the Rock. Today feels like my dreams have come true.
“I was delighted by the response, it was the perfect way to launch my new project and I am very grateful to everyone who came to find out more about our ‘artistic adventure’.”
At the forefront of last night’s opening exhibition were paintings by world famous artist Asger Jorn, co-founder of the CoBrA art movement in Paris in 1948. Birch was one of the first art dealers to discover the Danish artist and remained friends with him until his death in 1973.
Other artists from this avant-garde movement were also represented including Egill Jacobsen, Pierre Alechinsky and Carl-Henning Pedersen, as well as important pieces from artists who were friends with Jorn, and subsequently Birch, such as Walasse Ting, Jan Voss and Pinot Gallizio.
Photo: Valeria Maselli
Tuesday’s vernissage was the first of many that Anette and Caroline, a third generation art connoisseur who also runs her own Birch Copenhagen-Contemporary Art Gallery in Denmark, plan to host in Monaco over the summer.
From July 4, the charismatic team will be welcoming visitors to their “Tuesday on The Rock” events, from 4-7pm, where art lovers or merely the curious are invited to come and discover works by some of Europe’s most prolific contemporary artists over a glass of Ms Birch’s favourite cocktail. Tuesday on The Rock will run every week from until September 26.
Galerie Birch Monaco, 17 rue Basse, is open from 11 am to 1 pm, 2:30-6 pm, on Tuesday until Friday, and from 11 am to 3 pm on Saturday.
After six days of motorised trekking in the mountains between Saint-Dalmas-de-Tende and Menton, the Raid Mercantour Dream Warrior, organised by the association “Beyond our Handicaps”, will arrive on the Place du Palais on Saturday, July 1, at 6 pm.
Twelve wounded, including nine soldiers and three civilians, including a Monegasque, are currently riding along the military tracks constructed during the Second World War between France and Italy, travelling in Dream Mobiles, which are small electric quads.
The teams are composed of paraplegics or those with amputated lower limbs, military personnel with psychological injuries and young civilian adults with acquired disabilities.
“Beyond our Handicaps” is an association born from the experience of several of its members in the field of disability support, particularly in the areas of sports and accessibility: its objective is to support and promote rehabilitation and the reintegration of people with disabilities in the civil and defence sectors, in particular through the practice of outdoor activities.
Several Monegasque entities contributed to the operation, including the Prince’s Palace, the Directorate of Public Security, the Prince Albert II Foundation, the Directorate of Youth and Sports, the Princess Grace Hospital and the Monaco Yacht Club.
The sponsor of the association is a quadruple amputee Philippe Croizon, who swam across the Channel in 2010, and who has just completed the 2017 edition of the Dakar Rally in Argentina.
The Supporting Wounded Veterans charity raised €22,000 at a Stars’n’Bars Quiz Night held on Thursday, June 8.
Gilly Norton founded the UK-based Supporting Wounded Veterans four and a half years ago because, as she told Monaco Life, “It was disgraceful that wounded veterans who’d seen active service in war zones, fighting for our country, were not getting better care of their life-changing injuries on their return.”
As she explained, “The veterans have been medically discharged – with injuries like amputations or PTSD – and are looking to do something meaningful with their lives. Some 87 percent of those who participate in our Pain Clinic and/or Skiing with Heroes programme return to work or training.”
Photo: Jack/Kingdom Visual
The Pain Clinic educates veterans on pain management and helps those who have become medically addicted. “It’s astonishing what these guys will do to get better,” Ms Norton emphasised.
All donations and contributions raised through Supporting Wounded Veterans go towards the charity’s unique Pain Clinic Programme, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) research. In fact, prior to the fundraiser in Monaco, Ms Norton had just returned from visiting the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where she was petitioning a study on PTSD. When the private research university asked her “why”, her answer was direct: “No one’s done anything on the subject since World War II.”
The Quiz Night in Monaco, where ten British veterans played along, was organised by Rachel Dickens – the English osteopath in Monaco and Antibes – who in her off time works as the Medical Lead for Skiing with Heroes.
Ms Dickens knows all about pain management. After a sports accident left her paralysed for six months, she was so impressed with her osteopath rehab that she decided to train at the British School of Osteopathy. She now has a bilingual team of 16 at her clinics.
As she put it, the Skiing with Heroes programme helps wounded veterans start new lives through “skihabilitation”, allowing them to regain their confidence and begin a path to fitness, sustained wellbeing and employment.
(L-R) ISM ‘s Angela Godfrey, Guardsman Musa Jarju and Gilly Norton (second from right) with attendees
Certainly Musa Jarju, who participated in a Ski Week in Switzerland, would agree.
“It brought me back to life,” the 38-year-old shared with Monaco Life, “and I couldn’t ski!”
Guardsman Jarju was medically discharged after serving six years in Afghanistan. He has a reconstructed heel and was diagnosed with PTSD.
When Supporting Wounded Veterans first contacted him about an interview for their programme, he was anxious. Suffering from constant pain and preferring the comfort of his sofa, Guardsman Jarju said, “It felt good to leave the house.”
As he described, “When you are on tour, you spend 80 percent of your time with other soldiers, and they become more than your comrades, they become your family. One day, I was first on the scene when a member of our unit had his arms and legs blown off. We took these attacks personally and our first reaction is to get back out on the front line and try to get the guy that did this.
“Two days after the incident, the doctor asked me if I was okay. I replied ‘yes’ because on the outside, we had to be tough. But when you come back home to your wife and children and you are detached from your unit, you can struggle with mental health issues.”
Guardsman Jarju added that before starting the Supporting Wounded Veterans program he couldn’t sleep more than two hours. “The Pain Clinic gave me the knowledge to understand my injury and how to cope with the pain.”
Additionally, and, unfortunately, typically, when Guardsman Jarju left military service, there was little follow-up on his injury and condition. He hadn’t been told that his orthopaedic shoe would need to be replaced every six months, or that the closest facility would be hours from his home. Supporting Wounded Veterans provided him with the attention his injury needed and were able to facilitate care at a clinic five minutes from home.
“In the UK we do so many charity events for these soldiers but here on the Riviera we are far removed from their issues,” Ms Dickens commented. “Supporting Wounded Veterans now has four mentors from Monaco who contact their veteran every week and mentor them back into work or training or setting up their own business.”
Following the success of Skiing for Heroes, Gilly Norton is hoping to set up a similar veteran program for sailing. Anyone interested in volunteering or assisting her with this initiative – or becoming a mentor or ski buddy – can contact info@supportingwoundedveterans.com.
For more on Supporting Wounded Veterans, see their website. Article first published June 10, 2017.
Travel Daily, the online resource for travel professionals, has reported that Australians have become an important group of visitors to the Principality.
Monaco’s newest art gallery, La Galerie Birch Monaco, opened Tuesday night to rave reviews from visitors who embarked on an “artistic adventure” in its charming premises on the Rock.
