On Thursday 10 July, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the export restrictions imposed by Beijing on rare earths (523 votes in favour, 75 against and 14 abstentions). MEPs believe that China is using these measures to twist the Union’s arm in order to obtain concessions from the EU in other disputes.
They are calling on the EU to reject these attempts at coercion and are asking that the issue be raised at the EU-China summit on 24 July.
“This resolution is yet another wake-up call: we need greater geopolitical awareness, greater economic resilience and genuine strategic sovereignty for Europe”, said the EPP negotiator for the text, Hildegard Bentele (German).
MEPs also warn of the risk of technology leakage, as the restrictions require exporters to provide certain information to the Chinese authorities in order to obtain export authorisation.
Finally, in the fight against the instrumentalisation of dependencies for critical raw materials, the European Parliament regrets that the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) is not accompanied by a specific budget.
See the joint resolution: https://aeur.eu/f/hsy (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)