At the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday 25 November, a number of MEPs, mainly from the majority political groups (EPP, S&D, Renew Europe, Greens/EFA), called for the EU to take a firmer stance to shield itself from a potential trade war with China.
For the EPP group, Juan Ignacio Zoido Álvarez (Spanish) welcomed Beijing’s recent decision to lift export controls on certain rare earths, but called for work to eliminate the remaining restrictions, “which limit our industrial capacity” (see EUROPE 13744/13).
In the same vein, Kathleen Van Brempt (S&D, Belgian) called this temporary pause “reassuring”, but also insufficient, as other “essential” control measures remain in force.
“China and the United States make decisions that shape our economy. And we remain on the sidelines, powerless over what comes next”, she lamented.
For Christophe Grudler (Renew Europe, French), the forthcoming presentation of the ‘RESourceEU’ plan by the European Commission is a positive signal (see EUROPE 13739/6). “We need a strong, coherent, offensive European ambition. The regulation on critical raw materials adopted in 2023 was a first step. But today, we need to go further”, he declared.
Many MEPs have stressed the need to diversify supplies of critical materials. For some, the EU needs to be less reticent about going to the WTO and using the EU’s anti-coercion instrument.
Concluding the debate, the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, Stéphane Séjourné, stressed the importance of effective European organisation to ensure that in the event of a shortage of raw materials “we are not pitted against each other”.
“What we did successfully with vaccines [during the Covid-19 crisis, editor’s note], we must do again together for our pooled, coordinated and secure strategic resources”, he declared.
Mr Séjourné also stressed the need to build industries that can recycle these raw materials “to prevent them from leaving Europe”. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)