Brussels, 05/04/2023 (Agence Europe) – On Wednesday 5 April, Member States’ ambassadors to the EU approved the authorisation for the EU to negotiate a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to establish a partnership on sustainable commodity value chains. This decision must now be formally adopted by the Council. After that, the Commission can start discussions with the DRC on the partnership. The EU has already concluded three such agreements with Canada, Kazakhstan and Namibia.
The DRC is the world’s largest producer of cobalt (used to manufacture batteries) and was supplying 63% of global demand in 2020. At the presentation of the Critical Raw Materials Act in March (see EUROPE 13143/2), European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton said that the EU could provide expertise to raw material-rich third countries for sustainable processing, among other things, explaining that partnerships on critical raw materials were beneficial to both parties. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)