Denmark and Germany have effectively put the Bornholm Energy Island back on the rails by agreeing to move ahead together with the cross-border offshore wind hub, with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen presenting the decision alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at an energy gathering in Hamburg.

In political terms, the message is that what had become a difficult, cost-heavy infrastructure concept is now being treated as a shared strategic priority rather than a Danish national megaproject that Germany merely benefits from at the margin.

Europe’s North Sea governments are trying to turn offshore wind from a collection of national projects into a shared piece of continental infrastructure.

At the Future of the North Sea Summit in Hamburg, energy ministers from the UK, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway signed what is essentially a political commitment to co-develop around 100 gigawatts of offshore wind in shared economic waters, alongside the grid architecture needed to move that power across borders rather than trapping it within national systems.

A group of Northern European governments is preparing a long-horizon offshore wind pact that pairs scale-up ambitions with a sharper security agenda. Energy ministers from nine countries meeting in Hamburg next week are expected to sign a declaration committing to jointly develop 100 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity in the North Sea by 2050, positioning joint projects as a material share of the region’s decarbonization buildout and of Europe’s future power system architecture.

The draft declaration underscores that the next phase of offshore wind is no longer only an industrial or climate policy project; it is increasingly treated as critical infrastructure. Alongside the build targets, participating states plan to formalize cooperation on physical and cyber protection for offshore energy assets.