As the energy ministers of the European Union’s Member States met in Luxembourg to discuss the EU’s new gas package, France, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia sent a joint letter to the European Commission, on Tuesday 25 October, asking it to give greater recognition to the role of low-carbon hydrogen in decarbonising the energy system.
For these countries, EU legislation should encourage the rapid deployment and production of all renewable and low-carbon fuels, including hydrogen “provided they meet an ambitious greenhouse gas emission threshold”.
“We cannot realistically live up to our ambition by excluding low-carbon fuels from the EU framework”, say the ministers who signed the letter.
They therefore call for adequate provisions not only in the gas legislative package currently before the co-legislators (see EUROPE 12854/11), but also in the revised EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED III) and in future delegated acts on renewable fuels of non -biological origin (RFNBOs).
To this end, the eight countries proposed to the Czech Presidency of the EU Council to introduce a new article in the gas package that would allow Member States to count hydrogen and low-carbon fuels towards the targets of the RED III Directive for the share of renewable energy in industry and transport.
In their view, the contribution of hydrogen to Member States’ targets in these sectors should be assessed in line with the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission thresholds provided for in the EU taxonomy, as part of the delegated acts on non-biological renewable fuels currently under preparation.
They say that Member States should be allowed to count hydrogen supplied from grid electricity as contributing to the RED III targets for industry and transport, as well as the targets for aviation and maritime sectors, for each hour that the CO2 content of the grid electricity meets the GHG emission reduction requirement of the taxonomy.
“Member-States should also be allowed to support the renewables and low carbon installations in the form of operating aid or investment aid”, the letter said.
Prioritise domestic production
While the Commission had proposed to target the import of 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen by 2030 as part of its plan to move the EU away from its energy dependence on Russia (REPowerEU), the eight Member States oppose the inclusion of binding hydrogen import targets.
For them, the EU must prioritise domestic production so that “current European dependencies on fossil fuels are not replaced by new ones” and establish a common framework for assessing the climate contribution of domestic and imported hydrogen.
“All greenhouse gases emissions shall be taken into account, including long-distance transportation and the impact of the technology of production”, the letter states.
They therefore call for the rejection of the amendments proposed by the European Parliament that provide for a different treatment of certain hydrogen sources (see EUROPE 13022/7), in the framework of the interinstitutional negotiations on RED III (trilogues).
Hydrogen/gas mixture
At the energy ministers’ meeting, a majority of Member States expressed their opposition to the Commission’s proposed cap on the mixing of hydrogen with fossil gas at gas interconnection points.
While the text foresees the obligation for gas transmission system operators (TSOs) to accept, starting the 1st of October 2025, cross-border flows of gas with a hydrogen content (by volume) of up to 5%, many ministers have stated their preference for bilateral agreements between TSOs.
In particular, they argued that some gas networks cannot accept hydrogen/fossil gas mixtures above 2%.
See the letter and the proposed amendment: https://aeur.eu/f/3t0; https://aeur.eu/f/3t1 (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)