We are currently importing all the natural gas in Europe, and both the price and carbon footrpint are more than double of what pipeline delivered from Russia.

You could build a pipeline from the middle east to Europe for hydrogen. We are already building powerplants in Sahara to export energy to EU. But I do not see why you should ever need to.

Iron ore and Aluminium ore is literally everywhere. We could move all of primary metal refining close to equator for solar power. China is close enough to equator, and produces huge quantities of Iron. Australia could be producing iron, they have plenty of sun.

Or Europe could produce hydrogen in the summer and store for the winter to keep refineries running.