The connecting element: Moscow and Berlin were offered to create a new alliance

Alexey Gromov, Principal Director on Energy Studies of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to the Internet portal Politonline.ru on the prospects for creating a "hydrogen alliance" by Moscow and Berlin.

A new idea that Moscow and Berlin could jointly implement was outlined by Rainer Seele, ex-head of the Austrian OMV. He believes that it’s reasonable to create a "hydrogen alliance" for both sides.

Alexey Gromov, Principal Director on Energy at the Institute for Energy and Finance reports, how realistic is the creation of such an alliance.

"The offer is very good considering that Germany is the largest buyer of Russian gas in Europe (if we don't take Turkey into account)," Gromov explains.

In addition, after the commissioning of Nord Stream 2, Germany will also become the largest distributor of Russian gas for the whole of Europe. Therefore, the potential for the production of hydrogen from Russian gas on the German territory is enormous.

“I think that both Russia and Germany are, in principle, interested in this project. Thanks to it, it will be possible to implement the EU climate doctrine, based on the promising and large-scale use of hydrogen as a clean fuel that does not contain carbon dioxide.

At the same time, Russia wants to stay in the "orbit" of the European energy market even in the conditions of the future low-carbon economy of this region," the expert said.

A logical question: if the idea with the "alliance" is interesting, when will they pay attention to it? The expert believes, everything depends primarily on the political relations of the two countries.

"If there is no geopolitical tension, often not related to energy projects, if everything goes well with the launch and commissioning of Nord Stream 2, then I think the creation of such an alliance is the next step in energy cooperation between the two countries," Gromov sums up.