On Wednesday 15 April, the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) will discuss the report by Dutch Socialist Mohammed Chahim (see EUROPE 13765/6) on the revision of the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA).
The Commission revised its first regulation on 3 December as part of its ‘ResourcesEU’ package, designed, among other things, to increase the degree of preparedness of European businesses in the event of shortages of raw materials or sudden interruptions decided for political reasons, as China did with its trading partners in 2025.
The targeted amendments made by the Commission to the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) reflect the need to strengthen the Union’s strategic autonomy, increase the resilience of critical raw materials (CRM) supply chains and foster the development of a circular and sustainable European industrial base, summarises the rapporteur. In particular, the Commission has proposed an indirect role for it in monitoring the supplies of large companies, through the intermediary of the Member States, and in proposing risk mitigation measures.
The rapporteur also drew on the recent report by the European Court of Auditors (see EUROPE 13800/4), which highlighted the EU’s vulnerabilities in terms of the supply of critical raw materials and shortcomings in the collection and recycling of post-consumer waste.
The rapporteur emphasises options such as “strategic stock replenishment, improved materials efficiency, diversification of supply sources, substitution and recycling”. Group purchasing mechanisms can also help to build up stocks in order to improve predictability and transparency, particularly for smaller market players.
“Strategic raw materials are often subject to concentrated supply chains and geopolitical risks that may lead to sudden supply disruptions”, writes the rapporteur. “In order to strengthen the Union’s preparedness and resilience, improved coordination among Member States regarding strategic stocks of such materials is necessary. The joint purchasing mechanism established under Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 could, where appropriate, facilitate the coordinated establishment or replenishment of strategic stocks by participating undertakings and Member States”.
For large companies, if significant vulnerabilities to supply disruptions are detected, these vulnerabilities should be “mitigated, including reducing the use of strategic raw materials, by improving material efficiency, diversifying its strategic raw materials supply chains, considering secondary raw materials, or substituting the strategic raw materials or by replenishing of stocks of strategic raw materials, including, where appropriate, through the joint purchasing mechanism”.
The Commission “should be able to receive the information regarding their compliance necessary for an effective monitoring and ensure they are prepared in case of supply disruption. The Commission should specify the mitigation measures that large companies should adopt in case of vulnerabilities, it should be able to do so by means of delegated acts”.
Furthermore, the rapporteur is in favour of maintaining a minimum of two deadlines per year for calls for projects, guaranteeing regular and predictable opportunities for project promoters, while preserving the Commission’s flexibility to organise additional targeted calls in the event of operational needs.
The amendments further clarify what constitutes manufacturing waste and post-consumer waste. “The reutilisation of materials, such as rework, regrind or scrap generated in the permanent magnet manufacturing process, which can be reclaimed within the same process that generated the material, do not constitute waste and should therefore not be seen as part of the recycled content shares of permanent magnets (...)”, the text states, for example.
In the short term, the MEP continues, recognition of the materials recovered from manufacturing waste can help to establish a European recycling industry and improve resource efficiency. The rapporteur supports the Commission’s proposal to include EU-originating waste in the scope of the CRMA agreement in order to strengthen European recycling capacities.
The target trajectories for each raw material should therefore “fully consider the actual recycling potential for manufacturing and post-consumer waste, taking into account Union-originated waste to ensure ambitions are technically achievable and drive genuine investment in post-consumer waste”.
And “in line with the European Court of Auditors’ call for a strategic approach to partnerships, the Commission should regularly evaluate international collaboration in order to identify effective initiatives that strengthen the diversification and resilience of supply”, says the rapporteur.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/ljm (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)