EU-wide Advantages and Opportunities for “RFCS-2025 Coal Accompanying Measures”

1. Single Market Access (450+ million consumers)

• Turn former mine sites into EU-wide demonstrators for low-carbon building materials produced from mining waste, opening a construction market worth €1.2 trillion/year.

• Upscale geothermal-based district-heating networks across coal regions, tapping a heating & cooling market that accounts for ~50 % of the EU’s final energy use.

• Deploy CCS/CCU value chains that feed into the EU Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS) and Innovation Fund, enabling carbon-neutral products to circulate freely without national trade barriers.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• RFCS rules encourage multi-beneficiary consortia, enabling coal regions in, for example, PL, ES and DE to jointly pilot mine-repurposing solutions and share geological data.

• Inter-regional learning platforms (JRC Coal Regions in Transition, S3 partnerships) shorten the innovation cycle by pooling best practices on methane abatement, water purification, and post-mining land use.

• Standardised reskilling curricula can be co-designed with vocational bodies from several Member States, accelerating labour mobility and mutual recognition of qualifications.

3. Alignment with Flagship EU Policies

• European Green Deal & Fit-for-55: Direct contribution to phasing-out coal, methane-emission reduction, circular use of wastes, and biodiversity restoration.

• EU Methane Strategy: Projects targeting CH₄ capture in closing mines are fast-tracked for regulatory incentives and carbon-credit monetisation.

• Just Transition Mechanism: Socio-economic measures (up-/reskilling, regional diversification) dovetail with Territorial Just Transition Plans, boosting access to further grants and soft loans.

• EU Skills Agenda & Pact for Skills: Outputs can be integrated into EU-wide competence frameworks (EQF), enhancing workforce mobility.

4. Regulatory Harmonisation Benefits

• One set of environmental and CCS permitting rules (EU CCS Directive, ETS monitoring) reduces compliance costs vs. 27 separate national frameworks.

• EU standards for secondary raw materials (End-of-Waste criteria, Construction Products Regulation) facilitate cross-border trade in recycled mineral products.

• Common mine-safety directives allow transfer of H&S technologies without re-certification, speeding up deployment in multiple Member States.

5. Access to Europe’s Innovation Ecosystem

• Synergies with European Research Area infrastructures (e.g. ECCSEL for CCS, EPOS for subsurface data, LIFE-DEMINE for water remediation).

• Collaboration opportunities with EIT RawMaterials, EIT InnoEnergy and EERA Geothermal for acceleration services and venture-capital leverage.

• Integration of digital twins and AI-driven monitoring via Digital Europe Programme enhances technology readiness and market uptake.

6. Funding Synergies & Leveraged Finance

• Combine RFCS grant with Just Transition Fund (€19.2 bn), Horizon Europe Cluster 5 (Climate, Energy & Mobility), LIFE Clean Energy, and the Innovation Fund for post-grant CAPEX.

• Blend with InvestEU guarantees and EIB coal-transition loans to derisk large-scale demonstrators.

• Use ERDF/ESF+ for local infrastructure and skills roll-out, reducing co-funding burden on consortium partners.

7. EU-Scale Deployment, Replicability & Impact

• Mine-water geothermal pilot in one Member State can be replicated in >70 coal basins EU-wide, cutting up to 4 Mt CO₂eq/year by 2030.

• Harmonised CH₄-capture protocols could abate 1 Mt CH₄ EU-wide, equal to ~28 Mt CO₂eq.

• Circular use of coal-mining residues could supply 10 % of EU critical raw-material demand for construction aggregates, reducing imports.

8. Strategic Recommendations for Applicants

1. Build a geographically balanced consortium (at least 3 MS) linking a coal-intensive region, a high-tech research hub and a manufacturing cluster to maximise EU value-chain coverage.

2. Map proposal KPIs directly to Green Deal targets (methane-reduction %, jobs created, hectares restored) to boost evaluation scores under “Impact”.

3. Include a clear replication work-package: demo site → follower sites in ≥3 Member States, supported by a rollout-toolkit (standard operating procedures, digital models, investment blueprints).

4. Integrate a skills pillar aligned with ESCO & EQF to facilitate EU-wide certification and mobility.

5. Budget for dissemination via EU platforms (CINEA, JRC Coal Regions) and standardisation bodies (CEN/CENELEC) to lock in EU-level market uptake.

9. Unique EU-Level Value Proposition

“RFCS-2025 Coal Accompanying Measures” offers not only funding but an EU-wide springboard that:

• Converts regional post-coal challenges into transnational low-carbon markets.

• Provides a single regulatory & trading space for novel CCS/CCU and geothermal products.

• Leverages a dense network of research, financing and standardisation bodies unavailable at purely national scale.

• Multiplies impact through structured alignment with multi-billion-euro EU instruments, ensuring enduring decarbonisation and socio-economic revitalisation across coal regions in all 27 Member States.