After the coup of the war in Ukraine and the arrival of Donald Trump to the United States, the EU has placed strategic autonomy at the top of the priority list. It is not only about increasing armament spending, but also guaranteeing the supply of critical raw materials for multiple sectors in an increasingly unstable world. In this context, the European Commission will announce next Tuesday, March 25, dozens of projects with European financing to open, reopen and explore mines of strategic materials throughout Europe.
In 2023, the EU established a list of 34 fundamental raw materials for its importance and risk of supply. They are essential minerals for defense, energy, battery production, aerospace industry, etc. For example, electric vehicles need lithium, nickel and cobalt; Wind turbines are manufactured with boron; Airplanes require magnesium and scandio; and semiconductors are manufactured with silicon metal. In addition, of these fundamental raw materials, 17 of them have been declared strategic for their greatest risk of supply.
“We need to guarantee EU access to strategic raw materials. We have identified 17 strategic raw materials for our green, digital, defense and space transition, for a majority of which we have a huge dependence on external supply,” said the European commissioner and executive vice president of the Commission for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, Stéphane Séjourné, to Eldiario.es already a group of journalists days before the announcement days before the announcement.
“The European Law on EUROPEAN FUNDAMENTAL RAW MATERIALS allowed to designate strategic projects to increase EU’s ability to extract, process and recycle strategic raw materials and thus diversify EU supplies from third countries,” said the French commissioner. “Our goal is to have reservations that can cover, at least, the needs of the European industry for a period of one year.” The European Commission has received 170 companies from companies for this type of project and Séjourné has announced that there will be new calls.
The EU depends 100% outside for the supply of lithium, 81% of the cobalt, 96% of the manganese, 75% of nickel, etc. In some cases, in addition, this dependence is reduced to a single supplier: China provides 100% of the heavy land, Turkey 98% of boron and South Africa 71% of platinum, important for cars and electrical products catalysts.
In 2021, Europe only produced 5.2% of the total minerals worldwide, in clear contrast with Asia, which monopolized 60.4%. In addition, the production of minerals in the continent has fallen 31% in the last two decades, which contrasts with important increases in the rest of continents: North America, 17.9%; South America, 8.3%; Africa 21.9%, Asia 113.9%; and Oceania 136.9%.
“It seems that Europe could have some resources, with lithium reserves in Portugal and France, cobalt in Finland and rare earths in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Balkans. However, it takes time without becoming a true prospecting in Europe to know the real reserves,” said a 2024 report of the Think Tank Rek Rek Elocano Institute.
“Even if these reservations were very abundant, there would be numerous obstacles to their exploitation, such as the high financial cost, the potential lack of social acceptance, the shortage of qualified labor, the long duration of the projects and the risk that this fundamental raw material has ceased to be relevant for when the project ends.”
The Think Tank argues that Spanish mining currently produces only four strategic raw materials: Spat-Flúor (Fluorita), Celestina (Strontium), Wolframio and Tantalo. “The Wolframium, after its highlight during the first and especially World War II and its posterior decline, returned to production in the 21st century, with the reactivation of old farms. The tantalus, associated with tin mining, has also been revitalized since 2019,” said the report, adding that Spain has more than a dozen on the list of 34 fundamental raw materials.
An EU investigation into the presence of rare earths in Europe, Turkey and Greenland analyzed the existence of 76 deposits and deposits and concluded that in Spain it would be advisable to “promote scientific and technical research”, since there are identified at least four areas with the presence of rare earths: Campo de Montiel (Ciudad Real), the Sierra de Galiñeir and the basal complex of Fuerteventura (Las Palmas), among others.
The Government of Spain is preparing a great national exploration program of the subsoil, the first that is launched in Spain in more than half a century, to improve “the knowledge of the mineral resources of the country, especially attending to the fundamental raw materials defined by the EU”, and within the framework of the I Plan of Action on Mineral Raw Minerals 2025-2029 that the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge has launched this Tuesday.
In parallel to that action plan, the Ministry has until May 24 to get public information the draft of the first national mining exploration program that is activated in democracy. It is a requirement to the EU member countries of the new European regulation of fundamental raw materials in a context of enormous global instability, with strategic autonomy in the foreground by the European dependence on Chinese minerals.
Source: www.eldiario.es
