The climate and energy ministers of Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Denmark issued a joint statement calling for the manifesto for the deployment of an important project of common European interest (IPCEI) for hydrogen signed by 22 Member States on Thursday 17 December (see EUROPE 12625/8), to focus exclusively on renewable hydrogen.
“We hereby subscribe to the Manifesto (...) as signatory members with the understanding that this initiative should exclusively refer to hydrogen from renewable energy sources since we consider this technology as the only long-term sustainable solution to achieve climate neutrality by 2050”, wrote the ministers.
They furthermore warned that they will “pursue this view on renewable hydrogen” in forthcoming legislative changes, including the forthcoming revisions of the Renewable Energy Directive (2018/2001) and the gas package.
These details on the commitment made by these five countries to hydrogen reflect the divisions that exist between Member States on the future role of different forms of hydrogen. These divisions also complicated the adoption of EU Council conclusions regarding hydrogen (see EUROPE 12621/14, 12616/13).
See the statement: http://bit.ly/3ny8SfZ (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)