Sustainable Europe, political agreement on Critical Materials Act

Critical Materials Act

The Raw Material Week has passed. In the background on the 13^th of November the final agreement between EU government representatives and lawmakers was reached. The agreement focuses on the domestic supply of critical minerals (lithium, nickel) to make Europe more sustainable and reduce its dependency on third parties. At the beginning of 2023, The Critical Materials Act was proposed. It provided a strategy to make a clean-tech product and to make the EU market competitive with the U.S. and China. According to the drafted proposal the EU in terms of 16 strategic materials should: extract 10%, recycle 15% and process 40% of its annual needs. The final text was accepted last week. This enables to introduction of the law at the beginning of 2024.

In the final version of the common text, the negotiators improved the recycling target by up to 25%. Moreover, Reuters provides that the EU Commission would pass a related act in 2027 that set a recycling target related to annual waste collected, rather than consumption. The trend on recycling supports the last steps of Italy policymakers who are trying to improve and set up new critical minerals chains based on this activity.

New critical materials

Furthermore based on the final agreement aluminum and synthetic graphite were added to the list of strategic raw materials. This is a close reply to the proposed plan by China to tighten export controls for graphite (China refines ca. 90% of total graphite). Moreover established Critical Minerals Act focuses that none of the third-party countries should import to the EU more than 65% of any strategic mineral (cobalt, copper, magnesium, and titanium included). What is important it sets time limits on granting permits for strategic mining, recycling, and processing projects. In the end, it also requires large companies to make a regular risk assessment of the strategic materials supply chains.

Věra Jourová highlighted the importance of this agreement. She has stated: “Delighted that co-legislators agreed on this important proposal in record time. The Critical Raw Materials Act ensures that Europe can take its future in its hands. With this Act, we can rely on secure, diversified and sustainable critical raw material value chains in Europe. This is the basis to succeed in the Green and Digital transition”.

Thierry Breton has indicated the importance of this decision on Europe’s economic security and resilience. He stated: “(…)The speed of negotiations and level of ambition demonstrate that raw materials have become essential for Europe’s economic security and resilience. From green and digital technologies to defense and aerospace, demand for critical raw materials is increasing fast. Without action, Europe risks supply shortages and unwanted dependencies. With this new law, we are increasing our extracting, processing, refining and recycling capacities in Europe with the highest environmental and social standards (…)”.

New perspective

Moreover, he informed that the EU “will work with Member States to identify strategic projects that will benefit from shorter and more efficient permitting procedures and easier access to finance”.