Key points
The European Economic and Social Committee supports the European Commission's strategy to create an enabling environment to boost supply and demand of hydrogen to deliver a climate-neutral economy. It stresses that clean hydrogen must be prioritised, including by the European Hydrogen Alliance, as this is the only option compatible with climate neutrality (1.2).
The EESC notes that due to the high production and transport costs, clean hydrogen should be used only in cases where other decarbonisation options are not possible, for example in sectors where it is difficult to reduce carbon emissions or in some very specific applications in the transport and construction sectors (1.4). It stresses that if clean hydrogen is to take off, European funds should not subsidise fossil fuels, and it calls on the Commission to apply the "do no harm" principle to all public funding under the MFF, InvestEU, the EU Recovery Fund and State aid (1.5).
The EESC calls for Europeans to be given a greater role in this process by means of direct, representative consultation and participation (1.6) and stresses the need to provide sufficient budgetary resources for clean energy under Horizon Europe and the European Innovation Council (EIC) (1.10).