In view of the risks to the supply of critical raw materials in the coming years, “a common European framework for collectively addressing this central challenge should be created”, says the European Commission. It is expected to make this point in the foreword to its proposal for a Critical Raw Materials Act, which is due to be presented on Tuesday 14 March in Strasbourg, according to a draft version of the document obtained by EUROPE.
The regulation will seek to achieve several objectives: - strengthen the EU’s capacity to extract, process and recycle critical raw materials; - diversify external sources of supply; - monitoring and mitigating supply risks; - increase the circularity and sustainability of raw materials consumed in the EU.
To implement many of the objectives of the future regulation, the Commission plans to establish a European Committee for Critical Raw Materials, composed of a Commission representative and representatives from each of the Member States.
Promoting extraction in the EU
By 2030, 10% of the critical and strategic raw materials consumed in the EU should be extracted there, the EU institution estimates. However, it believes that this will depend on the availability of these natural resources within the EU. As for processed critical raw materials, 40% of the demand should be made on European soil.
In the annexes to the future regulation, the Commission intends to establish a list of critical and strategic raw materials, and another for critical raw materials. These lists, which are not yet complete in the version to which EUROPE has had access, may be amended by the Commission by delegated act.
Critical and strategic raw materials are, in any case, those considered to be “of high strategic importance, with a high ratio of future demand to current world production, and whose production is difficult to expand”.
To facilitate the establishment of new projects for the extracting, processing or recycling of such raw materials, the Commission suggests the creation of a specific “Strategic Projects” label. This label will reduce the waiting time for project authorisations and for legal proceedings, which are common for the opening of mining projects.
The principle is very similar to that of the ‘Net-Zero Resilience Projects’ foreseen by the Commission in its forthcoming regulation to promote the development of the ‘net-zero emission’ industry (see EUROPE 13135/1).
Conditions and benefits of strategic projects
Any Strategic Project must “make a significant contribution to the Union’s security of supply of strategic raw materials”. It should also be implemented in a sustainable way and have cross-border effects.
A Strategic Project should be considered to be in the public interest by the Member States, which may therefore support them, without prejudice to the EU rules on State aid. This support can also take the form of administrative assistance or recommendations for accessing funding.
Above all, Member States will have to ensure fast-track procedures for issuing permits: - less than 1 year for raw material processing or recycling projects; - less than 2 years for projects involving extraction.
The Commission recognises that more complex mining projects require more time. Shorter deadlines are also foreseen for projects that have started their procedure before obtaining strategic project status: 21 months or 9 months for extraction projects.
In addition, Member States are called upon to establish a single competent authority for the granting of permits, so that promoters have a single point of contact throughout the procedure.
In order to access these benefits, project promoters will have to submit their application, in which they will have to provide elements on the feasibility of the project, its sustainability, its capacity to contribute to the objectives of the regulation, and its timeframe. The project will also need to include measures “to facilitate public acceptance”, as the Commission is concerned that public opposition to some new projects of this type is often a barrier.
It should be noted that Strategic Projects could be set up in third countries and benefit from easier access to financing, provided that they strengthen the EU’s security of supply and that some of the raw materials are accessible to European industry.
Identification of resources and needs
The full exploitation of resources in the EU requires detailed and public information, according to the Commission. It wants Member States to establish national exploration programmes, including mineral mapping, geochemical campaigns and geoscientific drilling. This information will have to be communicated to the Commission, but will also have to be publicly available online.
In the same vein, the Commission itself will have to develop a publicly accessible scoreboard analysing the supply risks for critical raw materials. This table could be fed by information provided by the EU27 on their strategic stocks.
Circularity
The Commission intends to increase the recycling potential in the EU, so that 15% of the strategic critical raw materials consumed in the EU come from an established EU recycling stream. This will require Member States to increase the collection of waste and components that contain sufficient critical raw materials and then ensure their recycling.
They should also put in place measures to promote the recovery of critical raw materials from extraction waste. Extractive waste management facilities are particularly targeted, as operators of these facilities are required to assess the potential for critical raw materials in the waste they process.
Attention should be paid to the case of permanent magnets because of the issues related to their recycling. The Commission intends to require producers of products, which contain permanent magnets (refrigerators, electricity generators, vehicles, air conditioners, industrial pumps, etc.), to provide precise information on the content of their products, including indications to completely separate permanent magnets from the rest of their products. This should facilitate their recycling, according to the Commission.
Finally, the EU institution wants to develop methods and rules to calculate the environmental footprint of critical raw materials.
Diversifying external supply
The European Committee for Critical Raw Materials should be able to discuss the relevance of certain EU strategic partnerships with third countries, assessing which country would be considered a priority. The aim is not to create a new European dependency on countries like China, as was the case with Russia for its hydrocarbons.
Finally, the Commission wants to address the volatility of raw material prices in third countries and strengthen the purchasing power of European buyers by setting up (or letting a third party do it) a system to aggregate different demands at EU level, in order to negotiate abroad with one voice. “A joint purchasing mechanism works best with a larger number of interested buyers”, the Commission says in the document.
See the provisional version of the regulation: https://aeur.eu/f/5pf and its annexes: https://aeur.eu/f/5pd (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)