BRUSSELS – When the EU and the European transport sector in the coming years will have to break free from Russian fossil fuels, it has to occur via a markedly improved access to hydrogen for both industries and fuel tanks.

This is evident from several drafts of the EU Commission’s long awaited proposal, RePowerEU, seen by ShippingWatch.

The package aims to strengthen the EU’s independence from Russian fossil fuels and is expected to be passed officially Wednesday afternoon.

The EU Commission is setting the stage for a marked strengthening of ambitions for the reorganization and the infrastructure for hydrogen to the European transport sector.

In a draft, the Commission – which has the initial mandate when it comes to new EU legislation – highlights that sustainable hydrogen will be ”key” in the departure from natural gas, coal and oil within European transport.

This means production has to increase, and the Commission wants to set a target of generating 10 million tonnes of hydrogen nationally and bring in an additional 10 million tonnes through imports before 2030.

From 2025, already, monitoring of the use of hydrogen in the transport sector will be initiated.

Wants to promote ”import corridors”

According to the Commission documents, there is currently a clear need for accelerating the rollout of hydrogen infrastructure.

This is due to the lack of a network able for ”producing, importing and transporting 20 million tonnes of hydrogen” before the end of the decade.

The Commission stresses that the current infrastructure is still ”in its infancy.”

”To facilitate the import of up to 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen, the Commission will support the development of three major hydrogen import corridors via the Mediterranean, the North Sea area and, as soon as conditions allow, with Ukraine,” writes the Commission.

As a starting point, the European authority aims to secure supply through ”Green Hydrogen Partnerships.”

Estimations suggest there will be a need for a total investment of DKK 208-282bn (USD 29-40bn) for EU-internal pipelines and, in addition, DKK 41.6-81.8bn for extension of storage capacity.

Long-awaited proposal

The Commission proposal arrives as yet another EU initiative following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. Since, energy and supply matters have become primary topics on political agendas all over Europe.

In practice, the wide-ranging legislative package is one of the first concrete steps on the road to independence from Russian energy. President of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen has previously called for the realization of this ambition before 2030.

Furthermore, the proposal arrives at the same time as the EU countries for more than a week have been negotiating a further tightening of the sanctions against Russian energy.

Here, a number of EU key personnel, including von der Leyen, have wished to make oil part of the union’s ban.

Negotiations have, however, come to a standstill due to opposition from, among others, Hungary.

The latest assessment by Josep Borrell, EU foreign policy chief, was that negotiations could be dragged out for weeks.

However, several observers have in recent weeks pointed out that RePowerEU could play an important role in breaking the standstill as the proposal could be used to promote the reorganization of the Eastern European EU countries’ energy network.