EU makes deal to boost domestic supply of key raw materials

Negotiators from the EU parliament and member states brokered an agreement on boosting domestic mining and reducing dependency on any one country for raw materials that are vital to the production of products ranging from batteries to solar panels, according to a statement.

“The Critical Raw Materials Act — that I presented eight months ago — will increase Europe’s resilience and economic security,” Thierry Breton, the bloc’s internal market commissioner, said in a post on the social network X.

The focus of discussions will now turn to the other key pillar of the EU’s bid to re-shore the clean-tech sector: the Net Zero Industry Act. France has been pushing for more recognition of nuclear power as one of the main technologies the EU should focus on boosting.

The deal includes:

-Regulations covering 34 critical raw materials vital to the clean-tech transition, the bulk of which are metals
-Targets to increase the EU contribution of these materials (10% for extraction; 40% for processing and at least 25% for recycling)
-Identification of measures to diversify imports of critical raw materials ensuring that no more than 65% of the EU’s consumption of each strategic raw material comes from a single third country
-Streamlining so that the total duration of the permit-granting process should not exceed 27 months for extraction projects and 15 months for a processing and recycling projects