"We, the Heads of State and Governments of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom, convened today for the third North Sea Summit in the city of Hamburg. In addition, we welcome Iceland as an observer to this Declaration.
"Recalling the declarations of the previous North Sea Summits in Esbjerg and Ostend, we reaffirm our shared ambitions to transform the North Seas into the largest clean energy hub in the world, building in particular on offshore renewable energy generation and strong interconnection.
"In doing so, we can enhance Europe’s energy resilience, provide affordable energy to consumers, ensure the longterm competitiveness of our industries on the global stage, and sustain high-value supply chains in the offshore energy industry, while reaching climate neutrality in Europe by 2050 and safeguarding our oceans’ environment and biodiversity.
Facing Geopolitical and Economic Realities
"Europe is facing critical challenges to its security, economy, and energy systems. Increasing geopolitical tensions, particularly Russia’s ongoing illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, jeopardise our energy security and underline the urgency of acting together.
"Ensuring the protection and resilience of maritime energy infrastructure demands close coordination and a common strategic approach to counter a variety of threats such as physical sabotage, cyber attacks, or other hybrid attacks.
"Energy costs remain high and volatile, posing challenges to households and industries alike, requiring work aimed at lowering energy prices and supporting sustainable energy production.
"The European offshore wind industry faces challenges, with inflation and supply chain constraints leading to higher project costs, reduced investment and less innovation, calling for collective action by government and industry actors to ensure the sector’s role as a global market leader and its value added for the economy as a whole.
"Ports are critical energy gateways and industrial ecosystems. As strategic assets for our competitiveness, sustainability and security they need continued investment and increased integration in offshore energy supply chains.
"Non-European actors are playing an increasingly significant role in key segments of our energy value chains, underscoring the need for a common approach to ensure diversification and safeguard our long-term resilience, security and energy supply.
Deepening European Unity through Cooperation
"In the face of these challenges, we can and must stand more united than ever in energy and energy security matters. To this end, we agree on the following common actions:
(1) "We will further enhance cooperation among North Seas States, in particular within the North Seas Energy Cooperation (NSEC) and the Greater North Sea Basin Initiative (GNSBI), setting a new benchmark for further coordination on energy policy and planning.
(2) "We are committed to a market-oriented, economically competitive and reliable buildout with coordinated spatial planning for cross-border cooperation projects to leverage efficiency potential and unlock the investments needed in offshore energy, energy infrastructure networks, and auxiliary technologies.
(3) "We recall the Ostend ambition of 300 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2050 and resolve to focus on measures for its implementation.
(4) "We call on our Energy Ministers, in particular as part of the operational working structures established in NSEC, to diligently work together on implementing the Action Plan to the Hamburg Declaration of Energy Ministers and are committed to regularly monitoring our progress on transforming the North Seas into an interconnected offshore energy hub for all of Europe.
Getting Offshore Wind Back on Track
(5) "To realise our offshore build-out ambitions, we aim to provide planning certainty and support investments in the offshore wind industry by agreeing on the following transitional, structural and accompanying measures:
- We will work towards a stable offshore wind tender pipeline.
- We will work together on solutions to de-risk investments, ensure the success of competitive tenders and mobilise private capital.
- We call on Energy Ministers and other relevant Ministers to further simplify and speed up permitting processes for offshore energy.
- We call on Energy Ministers to design a sound investment framework for offshore energy.
- We aim to contribute to reliable and resilient supply chains by supporting strategic manufacturing capacities and investing in value made across Europe as well as strengthening European port capacities by strategic and coordinated efforts.
- We recognise the importance of ensuring a level playing field and fair trade practices for our industries and will work together to protect supply chains.
(6) "We are committed to support a successful implementation of the Joint Offshore Wind Investment Pact for the North Seas between governments and the industries, sending a strong signal to investors, industries, and citizens that Europe is prepared to lead with clarity, consistency, and ambition.
Building Europe’s Energy Future in the North Seas
"Connecting electricity grids across borders in the North Seas can enhance the resilience of Europe’s electricity system as a whole, reducing dependency and providing stability in times of crisis.
(7) "Cooperation means complementing national ambitions, timelines, and coordinated energy infrastructure planning with regional coordination and regional project sets, while tapping into synergies in terms of rolling out a decarbonised energy system at least cost for society and environment:
- As an overall ambition, European Union Member States that are signatories to this Declaration as well as the United Kingdom aim to develop up to 100 GW of our joint 300 GW ambition through cross-border cooperation projects.
- Achieving this ambition together requires major, in particular private, capital investment. We will work towards establishing an Offshore Financing Framework for cross-border wind energy projects (OFF) that builds on, strengthens and leverages synergies of existing financing instruments to jointly develop and finance large-scale project sets, for which we intend to cooperate closely with the European Commission and the European Investment Bank.
(8) "A sufficient and affordable supply of low-carbon and renewable hydrogen and its derivatives can play an important role to support Europe’s industry in a climate-neutral future, maintaining global industrial leadership. With regard to the North Seas Region potential for offshore renewable and low-carbon hydrogen, we will work towards:
- Facilitating the development of projects combining offshore wind and hydrogen
through cooperation within NSEC.
- Encouraging the development of hydrogen production, transport and storage infrastructure as well as the associated supply chains, while building on a pragmatic regulatory framework and considering market driven supply and demand as well as other elements of the energy infrastructure, including Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS).
(9) "In order to improve the availability of skilled workforce across the North Seas Region, we will foster upskilling and continued education and training.
Securing Our Ambitions
(10) "In light of rising threats to offshore energy infrastructure, we welcome and support the increased level of multilateral cooperation in the North Seas as well as the Baltic Sea, including in the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) as appropriate to enhance its defence, overall security, and resilience.
(11) "We encourage industry to develop technology that enables detecting, monitoring and responding to security threats, so that offshore energy infrastructure can become an important and integrated part of the surveillance of our maritime sea and air space.
(12) "We will continue to take coordinated and decisive steps, while avoiding the duplication of existing efforts, to secure our maritime space and our increasingly interconnected offshore energy infrastructure against all threats, including physical sabotage, cyber or other hybrid attacks in the sea and maritime air space, in particular:
- enhance coordination of all military, civil and private security services to protect
offshore energy assets in the North Seas,
- encourage close collaboration between authorities, industry and infrastructure
operators to improve situational awareness below and above water, attributability of
damages, as well as incident response,
- work together for enhanced cyber defence by coordinating and harmonising national approaches and promote cyber security and standardisation,
- hold regular joint exercises of security services with all relevant actors, focusing on the protection of offshore energy infrastructure and collaborative crisis response,
- act against substandard ships to avoid the possible threats to offshore energy infrastructure and the environment posed by them.
(13) "We call on our Energy Ministers and Ministers responsible for defence, resilience and preparedness or other related fields to enhance cooperation related to the resilience and physical as well as cyber defence of our offshore energy infrastructure in the North Seas.
"This Declaration does not create any rights or obligations under national or international law. Regarding the participating EU Member States, the Declaration does not prevail over the rights and obligations arising from their membership of the European Union."