Brussels, 26 January 2024
Dear Mr Praeses,
Dear First Mayor,
Dear Senators,
Dear Member of our European Parliament,
Dear Members of the Hamburg Parliament,
I would also like to greet honorary citizen of the City of Hamburg, Professor Otto, and the Deputy Secretary-General of the OECD,
And, of course, Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish you a very warm welcome,
Just a few years ago, the construction of a large hydrogen terminal would have seemed unlikely, if not impossible. And yet, building work has started here in the Port of Hamburg. Soon the plant will be transforming ammonia into renewable hydrogen, thus making an important contribution to decarbonising one of the largest contiguous industrial areas in Germany. Hamburg will be one of the first ports in the world to import hydrogen on a large scale. What is more, there are producers of steel, copper and aluminium in this area wanting to produce in an environmentally friendly way but requiring huge quantities of energy to do so. Clean energy. Their proximity to the new terminal will give them a decisive competitive advantage. It is worth looking back again to see why and how we have come so far in such a short time.
At the start of my term of office, four years ago, the idea that hydrogen could replace fossil fuels in shipping or even in heavy industry was little more than wishful thinking. Something decisive was missing in order to ensure large-scale investment: predictability. Investors needed to see the sense of direction. That sense of direction was provided by the European Green Deal. Not only did the European Green Deal provide a clear vision for making Europe the first climate-neutral continent, but it also provided a binding legal framework which was signed by the European Parliament and all our 27 Member States. As a result, Europe’s political will is clear. And with that, the world’s largest economic bloc provides the necessary certainty that investors across the world are seeking.
But something else has helped to speed things up. In February 2022 Russia attacked Ukraine. The war has been terrible for Ukraine – and still is – but its consequences have also made life difficult for our industry. Before the war, we were highly dependent on Russian gas. And Putin knew that. When we supported Ukraine steadfastly from the start of the war, Putin tried to blackmail us. He gradually turned the tap, closing off the supply of gas. But we resisted! We went through a serious energy crisis – but we have freed ourselves from our dependence on Russian fossil fuels. We have diversified our sources of energy. Friends like the US and Norway have come to our aid. We have managed to cut our energy consumption by 20%. But, above all, we have invested huge amounts in renewables. Last year, for the first time, we generated more electricity from solar and wind energy than from gas. And this year, for the first time, we shall generate more energy from wind and photovoltaic than from gas. For us it is now clear that renewables are not just good for the climate but they are also good for our independence. And we have learnt a lesson from Putin’s blackmail and set ourselves clear new objectives. From 2030 we intend to produce 10 million tons of clean hydrogen ourselves every year and import 10 million more tons. That is ambitious but feasible. The project here in Hamburg is therefore a model project for Europe. On top of that, there is the new auction system of the European Hydrogen Bank. All that will give a great boost to the whole European hydrogen economy. And Hamburg is one of the leading lights in this area.
All this is taking place against the background of a real boom in renewables. Solar capacity rose by an impressive 50% in 2022 in comparison with the year before. It increased by another 40% in 2023. This means that the expansion of solar energy is way ahead of the plan up to 2030. And the same is true of wind energy. We have considerably speeded up the approval procedure at EU level. As a result, Germany approved three times more onshore wind farms last year than in the previous year. The more cheap, renewable energy we produce, the more economical it will be to produce alternative fuels for heavy industry and shipping. And I can see that Hamburg is on the right track here too.
The European Green Deal provided the framework and set the direction. But in order to make good progress, we need to roll up our sleeves and pull our weight at all levels. And that is precisely what the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce is doing. This demands team spirit, courage and endurance. You have seized the opportunity with your proverbial Hanseatic far-sightedness. I am not surprised. As the oldest chamber of commerce in Europe, you immediately grasped the logic of the European Green Deal. It is not just Europe’s path to climate neutrality. It is also a strategy for growth. The Agenda for Hamburg 2040 combines ecological responsibility with business opportunities. You have listened to experts. You have joined forces with international organisations, like the OECD. And, above all, you have included your businesses. Because they are the ones which are behind innovation, which invest and which create jobs and prosperity. And, last but not least, you are setting yourselves concrete objectives, because we all know that only things that can be measured are put into practice!
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Our work is far from over. 2024 will be a decisive year, with more geo-economic tensions expected, from the Red Sea to the Taiwan Strait, which also means more frequent disruptions to supply chains and greater volatility on the energy markets. International competition is becoming harder. That is the new normal that we have to deal with. Add to that an accumulation of extreme weather events, as a result of global warming, and we Europeans will have to work together as never before. We must and can prepare better for this new world. Let me therefore briefly touch on two further topics: energy infrastructure and the importance of artificial intelligence for our competitiveness.
Firstly energy. We need to bring energy prices down further, and to that end we need to make the right investment decisions today. We in Brussels have given the green light to 166 new infrastructure projects in the energy field, from electricity networks on land and sea and hydrogen electrolysers to the transport and storage of CO2. That also applies to super grids: far-reaching, secure networks stretching across our continent. Operated with the aid of artificial intelligence, directing cheap energy to where it is needed the most. That is how we will create the energy backbone of the economy of the future.
Secondly: digitalisation. As you are well aware, access to innovative technologies is becoming ever more important. Digital innovations are increasing productivity at breakneck speed. Thanks to 5G and faster assembly, factories today can already produce 20-30% more. The Port of Hamburg is a leader in 5G applications. And artificial intelligence is promising further leaps in productivity. The future competitiveness of our industries will depend largely on how well they manage to integrate artificial intelligence into their daily routines. I know that this is a huge topic in your Chamber of Commerce, too, and it primarily affects small and medium-sized enterprises. AI-driven chatbots can improve customer service even in small companies. The time saved by having the bot answer routine questions can be used by expert staff to tackle more complex issues.
Another example: AI can help to optimise maintenance intervals or production processes. That saves money. The same applies to the management of stocks and supply chains. AI – used wisely – can represent a decisive cost benefit. When it comes to AI, we need to go all out, because the wider picture is that Europe has a clear competitive advantage – our industrial data. We have the largest corpus of industrial data in the world, and this corpus of data enables us to train AI with data of unsurpassed quality. At European level, we are now working in a targeted way to facilitate SMEs‘ access to these databases. It is not merely a case of facilitating our businesses‘ access to existing AI solutions but of the innovative leaps that we in Europe wish to make.
The potential is huge. When I started my term of office in 2019, of the five best supercomputers in the world, not a single one was a European model. We decided to invest another 7 billion euros and, today, four of the top computers in the world are in Europe: Lumi in Finland, Leonardo in Italy, Mare Nostrum in Spain, and, since very recently, Jupiter in Germany. We are making all this computing power available to our European start-ups, so that they can bring their AI innovations to market readiness. Europe has the makings of an industrial AI superpower. And, if we can do that, it will also contribute a great deal to the goal of climate neutrality which we are talking about here today. Because AI has the potential not only to improve your production, but also, for example, to manage low-energy lighting concepts for your business premises, control heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, or provide logistical concepts which, in real time, can calculate optimum routes, from a CO2 perspective, based on weather and traffic information. All of which benefits not only the planet but also your bottom line.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The enormous efforts required of people and businesses to achieve the energy transition are also part of the overall picture. As is the readiness to change. But the energy transition is also creating tens of thousands of new opportunities, throughout Europe. President Biden has said repeatedly: ‘When I think about climate change, I think jobs.’ He is absolutely right. The number of people working in the solar energy sector in Europe rose in 2022 by a whopping 39% to 650 000. And the forecast is for this figure to almost double to 1.2 million jobs by 2027. That is encouraging, but there is still a great deal of work ahead of us. And one thing is very important to me – the success that we all wish to see depends on all of us pulling together. Politicians need to create the framework, but it is business which will drive innovation forward and do the work. We need to work closely together. We have examples of best practice from around Europe. Whether climate protection or AI – we want to collect these best practices and make them available, and that means in Hamburg, too.
Hamburg has always been a pioneering city. Other European cities can learn from Hamburg and its chambers of commerce and industry. We at the European Commission can not only help you but also learn from you, which is why we want to bring chambers of industry and commerce together at EU level for regular exchanges of experiences. You will soon be receiving an invitation. Thank you for your initiative and for inviting me once again to your beautiful city.
Many thanks.