EU Ministers for Industry and the Internal Market are invited by the French Presidency of the EU Council to discuss the issue of the EU’s strategic autonomy and the security of supply in Europe, in particular of rare earths and metals, in camera on Monday 31 January and especially Tuesday 1 February in Lens, France.
The first day will be an opportunity for the EU Ministers to visit projects in the Lens mining basin, which is undergoing conversion as part of the green transition and is committed to the autonomy strategy, in particular the ‘GigaFactory’ project in Douvrin, the car battery factory that should be up and running by 2023. On Monday evening, they will meet for an informal dinner.
Tuesday 1 February will be dedicated to the issue of EU industrial autonomy, with a morning plenary debate. Here, the objective will be to agree on an action plan to reduce the EU’s vulnerabilities and dependencies and to take stock of the actions that have been taken since March 2020, when the EU Industrial Strategy was presented by the European Commission (see EUROPE 12443/7).
During this plenary meeting, European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič and European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton will present the Commission’s work in the area of autonomy and the update of the Industrial Strategy of May 2021 (see EUROPE 12713/6).
Ministers will be asked to explore possible new actions to further reduce the EU’s dependence, particularly in semiconductors. Then they will also address the securing of European raw material supplies and their sustainability.
This will be followed by a working lunch where the report by Philippe Varin, former President of France Industrie, on the issue of the supply of critical raw materials and the strengthening of the European autonomy strategy will be presented.
In the afternoon, three thematic workshops will be held in parallel: - one dedicated to securing supplies of raw materials outside the EU and compliance with social and environmental standards; - a second on the issue of recycling and keeping critical raw materials in Europe through the circular economy; - a third on the issue of extraction and production of critical raw materials on European territory.
A case study will be presented by an emblematic private sector actor in each workshop. For example, on the issue of securing supply, the Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt will give a presentation to the Ministers. The French company Carester, which specialises in the recycling of magnets, will feed into the work of the Ministers in the workshop on the circular economy. At the end, a Minister from each workshop will present the conclusions to the other Ministers.
It will not be possible to achieve total independence, a Bercy source assured, as Europe lacks certain rare materials on its territory, but the objective will be to think about solutions. These would be threefold: improving local storage of raw materials, improving trade agreements to secure European supplies in times of crisis and, finally, installing raw material refineries.
Scoping paper ‘Workshop 1’ on securing supplies: https://bit.ly/3u8vp97
Scoping paper ‘Workshop 2’ on the circular economy: https://bit.ly/3gaPAeg
Scoping paper ‘Workshop 3’ on domestic supply: https://bit.ly/3o21PhR (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)