The European Union will find it difficult to secure the supply of raw materials it needs to meet its energy and climate objectives, because “the action taken by the EU27 to diversify imports is not producing tangible results, obstacles are hampering domestic production and recycling is still in its infancy”, said the European Court of Auditors (ECA) in a report published on Monday 2 February.
“As a result, many projects supported by the EU will probably not succeed in time”. Although strategic projects can now benefit from faster authorisation procedures and greater visibility, “many of them are unlikely to lead to a secure supply for the EU by 2030”, says the ECA.
“From the 26 materials necessary for the energy transition, for 10 we are fully dependent on imports. The situation isn’t much better for many other materials”, summarised Keit Pentus-Rosimannus, the author of the report. Although the Critical Raw Materials Act, adopted in 2024, has defined a strategic course of action, its objectives are not sufficiently explained or binding.
The EU’s ‘green’ transition depends on technical equipment such as batteries, wind turbines and solar panels requiring critical raw materials such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper and rare earths. And most of these materials are concentrated in a handful of third countries (China, Turkey or Chile), or even a single third country.
The Critical Raw Materials Act sought to remedy this situation and drew up a list of 17 strategic raw materials of which no more than 65% of the supply must be sourced from a single third country, by 2030. “At the transformation stage, this threshold is currently exceeded for four strategic raw materials that are important for the energy transition (lithium, magnesium, gallium and rare earths)”.
Imports down between 2020 and 2024. Over the last five years, the EU has also signed 14 strategic partnerships on raw materials, “seven of which were with countries with mediocre governance scores”, i.e. with poor performance on criteria such as political stability and the absence of violence/terrorism, the effectiveness of public authorities or the fight against corruption.
Between 2020 and 2024, imports from these partner countries also fell for around half of the raw materials examined. “The available trade data on raw materials important for the energy transition and concerning the 14 countries involved in a strategic partnership show that between 2020 and 2024, for the raw materials examined, imports from these countries actually decreased in 13 cases, while they increased in 13 others and remained stable in one case (iridium)”.
The 2024 Act also stipulates that by 2030, at least 25% of the strategic raw materials consumed in the EU must come from recycled sources. “But the outlook is not encouraging, since at present seven of the 26 materials needed for the energy transition have recycling rates of between 1% and 5%, while 10 others are not recycled at all”.
The EU also wants to stimulate domestic extraction of strategic raw materials to cover 10% of its consumption. “But in practice, exploration activities are underdeveloped. And even when new deposits are discovered, it can take up to 20 years for a European mining project to become operational. It is therefore difficult to imagine any concrete results by 2030”.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/kjh (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)