The European Commission is moving fast to reduce Europe’s dependence on imports of raw materials. However, the raw materials industry worries that continued ‘hazard-based assessments’ for project approval will stifle investment.
Nickel is an important part of EV battery manufacturing because of its energy density and capacity retention. Demand for nickel is on an upward trajectory as EV sales surge, but despite extensive recycling efforts, nickel demand continues to outpace supply.
The European Commission has raised the alarm about Europe’s lack of self-sufficiency for substances critical to the green and digital transitions. But what makes these materials so critical?
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A senior European Union official denied that the bloc’s recently agreed-upon plan to diversify its supply of strategically critical raw materials targets China, a move interpreted as aimed at easing increasingly fraught relations between Beijing and Brussels
The European Commission will sign a strategic partnership with Australia on critical raw materials, a source familiar with the matter told Euractiv, as the EU continues its drive to secure access to these materials from sources other than China.
The Council of the EU gave its final approval on Monday (18 March) for a strategy to secure a sustainable supply of raw materials critical for the green transition, digital industries, and defence sectors, it said in a press release.
Germany’s TÜV Nord Group is launching the world’s "first and only comprehensive certification" scheme for critical raw materials along the entire value chain – from exploration to extraction and processing, up to the final product.
Europe is facing a Chinese electric vehicles tsunami following the ban on the sale of petrol and diesel-powered combustion engine cars from 2035, Renault Chairman said at an economic conference, adding that competition from China exposes EU vulnerabilities in the all-electric market.
In a fresh agreement on the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), EU countries want to further increase targets for domestic processing of strategic raw materials, despite public commitments that processing should be done in resource-rich partner countries.
The German lawmaker responsible for the Critical Raw Materials Act in the European Parliament, Nicola Beer, has suggested scrapping targets for mining, processing and recycling of strategic raw materials in Europe.
The United States and Japan have reached an agreement on trade in minerals that are key to electric vehicle batteries, US trade officials said late Monday (27 March), a move to reinforce supply chains in a sector dominated by China.
France has a "very strong" interest" in "metal diplomacy" and will push for a very ambitious EU Raw Materials Act at a meeting next week that will see foreign ambassadors and industrialists discuss the EU's and France's strategy on the matter.
The Iranian government claimed last week it had found a new deposit of lithium in the Hamedan province, worth 10% of all global lithium resources, but experts say this marks no shift in EU-Iran diplomatic ties.
As the EU sets up its response to the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), French industry minister Roland Lescure told EURACTIV that Europe is on the cusp of a “new green industrial revolution” – if only governments are ready to spend the necessary cash.
