Europe’s latest green energy dream? A neocolonial pipeline dressed in hydrogen greenwash

As the EU Energy Council meets this week to discuss new challenges to EU energy security, a dirty deal is unfolding under the radar. 87 civil society organizations and networks are raising the alarm against the South H2 Corridor -one of the largest EU-endorsed energy infrastructure, promoted as a key pillar of the EU’s clean energy transition. But here’s the catch: green hydrogen barely exists.

According to the project's consortium, the pipeline, when fully operational, could deliver more than 40% of the RePower EU import target, set to import 10 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030. Yet, as reported by the International Energy Agency, global green hydrogen production was still less than 0.1% of total hydrogen output in 2022. Will the 3,300 km hydrogen pipeline transport fossil-based hydrogen, or even natural gas? This risks locking in fossil fuels interests, exploiting African resources, and diverting billions in public funds to corporate polluters - all under the guise of green transition.

The South H2 Corridor is designed to transport hydrogen from Tunisia and North Africa to Germany via Italy, by renovating gas transmission systems. The project’s goal is to repurpose 65% of existing gas lines to transport hydrogen to Europe, without guarantee that the corridor will exclusively transport green hydrogen. Marketed as a clean energy milestone, in reality it is one of the five ‘hydrogen-ready’ corridors on the wish-list of the corporate lobby group Hydrogen Europe, rubber-stamped by the European Commission under the RePowerEU energy security framework.

The companies behind it - Italian gas transport system operator Snam, Austrian gas corporations TAG and Gas Connect Austria, and German BayerNet - are the same fossil fuel corporations that have spent years lobbying to keep their infrastructure profitable in a post-carbon world. And they’re winning: the project has been fast-tracked as a Project of Common and Mutual Interest and made a 2025 Global Gateway flagship project, opening the door to billions in EU funds and loans from institutions like the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

It also allows Snam and its partners to tap into EU public funding from the Connecting Europe Facility, further reinforcing the financial and political support behind this scheme. Snam has long lobbied EU institutions to secure economic and political backing for a European hydrogen market—and the South H2 Corridor is the latest product of these efforts. The company is also a key player in the European Hydrogen Backbone, the massive EU gas industry-led infrastructure project that underpins the South H2 Corridor.

The EU’s political backing of the South H2 Corridor ensures that simplified procedures are applied for its construction. This includes speeding up permits, limiting public participation in the decision-making, but also guaranteeing corporate access to public funding in the form of ‘state aid’ by the Member States involved.

A pipeline built on broken promises

The South H2 Corridor banks on a hydrogen boom that has yet to materialise—raising urgent questions about its economics and about whether it will ultimately be repurposed for fossil-based hydrogen or even natural gas.

But even if renewable hydrogen were somehow to be produced, the ecological and social impacts would be immense. ​​Mega-projects like the South H2 Corridor and ELMED (the Tunisia-Italy electricity interconnection) exploit African land, water and labour to feed Europe’s energy needs, while communities—especially women in rural and frontline areas—bear the brunt of water scarcity, land dispossession, and energy poverty. In effect, these neocolonial schemes aim to externalise the costs of Europe’s decarbonisation onto the Global South.

At the same time, hydrogen pipelines waste public funds on a false plan for Europe’s clean transition targets.  Realistically, they are just an extension of the lifespan of gas infrastructure, which locks exporting countries into a carbon-dependent model. Meanwhile, dirty profits and resources flow to industrial centers, perpetuating an unjust and extractivist energy system.

And indeed, the South H2 Corridor is also a cornerstone of the Mattei Plan, Italy’s own ‘footnote’ of the Global Gateway.  Launched in October 2022 by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as “a new cooperation model’’ with Africa, ‘’non predatory and among equals”,  it rather serves Italian corporate interests to exploit African resources and winking at the EU with the promise of containing immigration from the continent.

If there was ever any doubt that fossil fuel interests still dominate EU decision-making, this week’s Energy Council meeting offers a glaring example. On the agenda: a private lunch between EU energy ministers and the head of a major fossil fuel industry lobby, where they will discuss what counts as ‘critical infrastructure.’

The EU is handing Big Polluters the steering wheel like never before. Europe cannot decarbonise at the cost of the Global South. The South H2 Corridor isn’t about clean energy. It’s about dirty corporate profiteering —funded by the public, and paid for by the most vulnerable. This project must be stopped. 
Instead of throwing public money at a fantasy, the EU must invest in real, just, and local energy solutions.