On 14 September 2022, in the Letter of Intent to President Metsola and Prime Minister Fiala, President Von der Leyen announced a proposal to create a EU Hydrogen Bank among the key new initiatives for 2023.
In the State of the Union speech, President Von der Leyen said that hydrogen can be a game changer for Europe, and it is needed to move European hydrogen economy from niche to scale.
REPowerEU has doubled the 2030 target to produce ten million tons of renewable hydrogen in the EU, each year. To achieve this, Europe must create a market maker for hydrogen, in order to bridge the investment gap and connect future supply and demand. For this aim, President Von der Leyen announced the will to create a new European Hydrogen Bank. It will help guarantee the purchase of hydrogen, notably by using resources from the Innovation Fund, and it will be able to invest 3 billion euros to help building the future market for hydrogen.
On 18 October 2022, the European Commission published the Commission Work Programme 2023, where the proposal for the initiative is scheduled to be delivered in the third quarter of 2023.
According to the Commission Work Programme, the initiative may be legislative or non-legislative.
References
For further information: Stefano Spinaci, legislative-train@europarl.europa.eu
As of 20/11/2022.
