17 organisations representing technology providers, project developers, producers, infrastructure providers, other market participants and consumers along the entire hydrogen value chain and are determined to support decarbonization in the EU. According to the signatories of a joint declaration, this now urgently requires a reality check and some course corrections. The associations have identified these challenges:

•     Large gap between strategic and political vision and market reality.
•     Slow development of electrolyser capacity.
•     Non-competitive renewable and low-carbon hydrogen production costs.
•     Underinvestment in and underdevelopment of infrastructure for producing and transporting hydrogen.
•     Administrative barriers and delays in the disbursement on critical funding.
•     Missing long-term demand visibility and demand-side support instruments.
•     Lack of clarity on low-carbon hydrogen’s role in decarbonising the hydrogen market in Europe.
•     Absence of effective hydrogen import vision and strategy.

Accordingly, this joint statement aims to draw political attention to the urgent need for a reality check and the resulting course corrections. It calls for

•  a pragmatic and technology-neutral approach to enable competitive hydrogen production.
• ensure that financial incentives are created to reduce the costs of hydrogen at a technological level through appropriate measures as part of the Clean Industrial Deal.
• achieve greater planning certainty by revising the EU hydrogen strategy to create a competitive hydrogen market in the EU and complement this with a well thought-out hydrogen import strategy.
• accelerated, intelligent infrastructure development
• Creating markets for products made from and with RFNBOs and low-carbon fuels as an essential prerequisite for building a business case.
• Improving European demand incentives
  Strengthening the EU's role in creating a global market for hydrogen by developing the international component of the EU Hydrogen Bank and extending the scope of the Union database to third countries.

The signatories are ready to contribute and strongly recommend a collaborative dialogue with stakeholders to quickly identify and promote the best available solutions for the development of a robust and competitive market for renewable hydrogen in the EU. The declaration can be found here.

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