“We have come a long way on hydrogen”. At the World Hydrogen Summit in Rotterdam on Thursday 11 May, Frans Timmermans gave an update on the EU’s progress in the global development of hydrogen. In his speech, the Commission Vice-President responsible for the ‘European Green Deal’ emphasised the EU’s leading position in this field.
“The EU is now the first and only major market to have ambitious targets, funding programmes and a policy framework”, Timmermans said.
The new regulation on infrastructure for alternative fuels (see EUROPE 13171/37) should ensure, as explained by the Commission Vice-President, a basic hydrogen refuelling infrastructure throughout the EU. “The last legislative piece in this puzzle are the rules to govern the nascent hydrogen market”, he said.
On this last point, Frans Timmermans argued that the final inter-institutional negotiations should start in June.
Regarding renewable hydrogen producers, definitions have been established in the framework of the revised Renewable Energy Directive (see EUROPE 1316/2), which is currently being discussed by the European Parliament and the EU Council. Mr Timmermans expressed his wish for an adoption “by the deadline of 13 June”.
In the second part of his speech, however, he conceded that Europe will “never be able to produce the amounts of hydrogen, green hydrogen, that we need. “We will need to import hydrogen from other parts of the world”, he added.
In this sense, the Vice-President of the Commission called for the multiplication of partnerships - notably with countries such as Saudi Arabia - in order to emancipate ourselves from dependence on hydrocarbons. “I hope that at COP28 in Dubai we can be more concrete”, he said.
Frans Timmermans will be at the World Hydrogen Summit until its closure on Friday 12 May.
Read the speech: https://aeur.eu/f/6uk (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)