Last week, after two years of works, Royal Dutch Shell launched its 10 MW hydrogen electrolysis plant at the Wesseling site. It is the biggest in Europe.

Germany made the headlines also because Economy and Energy Minister Peter Altmaier and Chile’s Minister of Energy Juan Carlos Jobet agreed to strengthen cooperation (Opens in a new window) on green hydrogen.

Additionally, even Germany’s project developers made the headlines. Svevind Energy reached an agreement (Opens in a new window) with Kazakh Invest National Company to look into opportunities to develop mega-sized facilities for green hydrogen production in Kazakhstan.

Further north, Scandinavian countries have been fairly active in M&A operations. Aker Clean Hydrogen (Opens in a new window) bought 20% of Meraker Hydrogen, indicating the clear intention to accelerate the development of green hydrogen production.

Norway’s Saga Pure (Opens in a new window) acquired maritime hydrogen solutions provider Hyon.

Developments also in Latin America, not just Chile. The Uruguayan Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining (Opens in a new window)(MIEM) said that there is enough interest to proceed with new plans to develop hydrogen in the country.

In Asia, oil field services company Baker Hughes and Samsung Engineering agreed (Opens in a new window) to team up for CCUS and hydrogen technologies for “key Korean costumers”.

Meanwhile, several countries are testing hydrogen use in transportation.

A pilot transit hydrogen-powered bus fleet operating in Nanjing (China) has reported 75,000 kilometres of in-service operations in a month and a half.

In Canada, two of the trucks bringing goods on the highway between Calgary and Edmonton will be powered by hydrogen by the beginning of next year and, more importantly, a fleet of 65 heavy-duty trucks will switch from diesel to hydrogen in British Columbia.

This week

The European Parliament (Opens in a new window) takes center stage this week. Plenary from today to Thursday on the rule of law and priorities of the Slovenian Presidency (Tuesday). Ljubljana is expected to focus on implementation of NextGenerationEU, but also on the Balkans and other foreign challenges.

In the energy field, the Parliament is expected to adopt the 30-billion Connecting Europe Facility for the period 2021-2027. Discussions will also be held on EU-NATO cooperation, TEN-T and the impact of offshore renewables on fisheries.

The Commission's agenda will also be full. Today the Western Balkans Summit (Opens in a new window). The Commission is represented by von der Leyen.

In the meantime Vice-President Frans Timmermans is in South Korea where he meets most of the representatives of the local government, including the Ministers for Trade, Foreign Affairs, Energy and Environment. He also meets with the chairman of Hyundai Motor Group.

On Thursday, High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell (Opens in a new window) hears from Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, before attending a U.S.-Spain forum.

Vice President Margrethe Vestager (Opens in a new window) hears from U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday.

Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi (Opens in a new window) is on an official visit to Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia (from today to Friday).

The week closes on Sunday with the G20 Venice Climate Summit (Opens in a new window).

The Commission is expected to present a proposal to revise the Renewables Directive next week. According to the recently circulated draft, the Commission wants to double the share of renewables in the EU's energy mix from the current 20% to 38-40% by the end of the decade. In the package of July 14 also the proposal for the reform of the ETS. Important the debate on the percentages for the linear reduction of the quantity of annual permits. Extension of the system to road transport and construction is very likely.

Last week

The Council adopted its first-reading position on European climate legislation (Opens in a new window), concluding the procedure to adopt the act that sets in legislation the goal of EU climate neutrality by 2050.

A group of five EU member states (Austria, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg and Spain) have sent a letter (Opens in a new window) to the Commission asking that nuclear energy be excluded from the taxonomy.

Published in the Official Journal of the EU the regulation on the European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund (Opens in a new window), as well as the regulation establishing the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) (Opens in a new window), and the one establishing the Just Transition Fund (Opens in a new window).

“Although the EU provides specific funding for the economic growth of border areas, their potential has not yet been fully unlocked,” said Ladislav Balko, the member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for a report about EU funding for cross-border regions. “For the implementation of the 2021-2027 programme period, we recommend that cooperation programmes should be focused better, and that a merit-based approach should be used in ranking projects to be financed.”

The Commission has launched an improved and updated version (Opens in a new window) of the "De-risking Energy Efficiency Platform" (DEEP).

New EU ecodesign measures for electric motors and variable speed drives (Opens in a new window) enter into force on 1 July 2021.

The Commission opened the comment period for the draft Fishing Vessel Engine Emissions Act.

The Commission has raised €15 billion in its second NextGenerationEU operation (Opens in a new window) to fund Europe's recovery from the coronavirus crisis <.

"Accelerating energy transitions on a path to climate safety can grow the world’s economy by 2.4 per cent over the expected growth of current plans within the next decade," writes the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reporting on its new analysis (Opens in a new window).