Germany and Italy have reaffirmed their commitment to gas and hydrogen pipelines across the Alps.

Olaf Scholz and Giorgia Meloni signed a German-Italian Action Plan to foster closer cooperation on green growth, climate action and energy security, with new pipelines through the South Central Corridor from Bavaria to Tunisia that would allow the importation of green hydrogen from Africa.

Part of the European Hydrogen Backbone, the pipelines will provide a hydrogen import capacity of 4Mtpa from North Africa and could deliver more than 40 per cent of the REPowerEU import target. Although most of the network will use repurposed and existing pipelines, the proposed new section would be 3,000km long and routed via Switzerland or Austria.

The project was initially announced in May, but the dual nation commitment means it is more certain to proceed.

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