EU launches plan to secure supplies of 17 strategic raw materials

The European Commission is finalizing the presentation of its first strategic projects to boost the mining of critical materials in the EU. In a volatile geopolitical environment, Europe’s monumental dependence on countries like China for essential raw materials poses a high risk that Brussels wants to control. The EU executive is thus seeking to increase long-term autonomy in the extraction and processing of essential minerals for sectors such as the automotive industry, renewable energy, and defense. In the short and medium term, it hopes to build up reserves to withstand requirements.

The European Union wants to guarantee access to these key resources. “We have identified 17 strategic raw materials for our green, digital, defense, and space transitions. For most of them, we are heavily dependent on external supplies,” explained European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Stéphane Séjourné last Tuesday in Brussels. “Our goal is to have reserves that can cover at least the needs of European industry for a period of one year.”

These are “materials such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel, used to produce batteries; gallium for solar panels; raw boron for wind turbines; titanium and tungsten in the space and defense sectors,” Séjourné explained in a meeting with a group of journalists from Spanish newspapers, including EL PAÍS, invited by the Commission.

The EU’s dependence on some of these minerals is immense, both at the extraction and processing stages. China supplies 97% of the magnesium used in the EU, and heavy rare earth elements — used in permanent magnets — are refined exclusively there. Sixty-three percent of the world’s cobalt, needed in batteries, is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and 60% is refined in China. However, the EU’s dependence on the Asian giant, a key trading partner, generates deep misgivings. The White Paper on European Defense, presented last Wednesday in Brussels, singles out Beijing as one of the threats to European security. “Authoritarian states like China are increasingly trying to impose their authority and control on our economy and society,” the text warns.

The geostrategic importance of these raw materials has been made clear in the recent peace talks around the Ukraine war. Washington, which refuses to offer security guarantees to Kyiv, instead demanded the transfer of part of the rights to exploit the invaded country’s rare earth minerals. The aggressor, Russia, which also has a high concentration of strategic minerals, attempted to bring the United States closer to its position by offering Washington access to them.

Crises such as the Covid pandemic and conflicts like those in the DRC and Ukraine have demonstrated their ability to impact both the price and supply of these raw materials. They are key to sectors such as the automotive industry — for the manufacture of electric motors and batteries; technology — in displays, semiconductors, and other components; and renewable energy, which makes them vital for the energy transition, as they are used in magnets and solar cells essential for wind turbines and solar panels. At a time when defense has become a European priority, their presence in military systems, such as missile guidance and radars, makes them especially valuable.

As Séjourné explained: “The European Critical Raw Materials Act allowed for the designation of strategic projects to increase the EU’s capacity to extract, process, and recycle strategic raw materials and thus diversify EU supplies from third countries.” The French Commissioner announced that the first strategic projects selected by the Commission, including Spanish proposals, will be announced next Tuesday, March 25. “And new calls will follow shortly,” he added.

Brussels is thus seeking to streamline and prioritize the processing and approval of these initiatives, in addition to facilitating funding, although it is already behind schedule. In some cases, the plan may involve reopening closed mines for new uses. As the European Parliament's think tank emphasized in a document published this month, new methods exist for processing extracted minerals with very limited pollution: "The large-scale development of these methods would allow the reopening of EU mines, significantly contributing to the EU's sovereignty objectives while simultaneously reducing carbon emissions."

By the closing date of last summer, the European Commission had received 170 project proposals. They cover virtually the entire value chain: although almost half are extractive, a significant number operate in the fields of processing, recycling, and even substitution. The level of detail is limited, but it does allow for a distinction between those of EU origin (121) and non-EU origin (49).

The EU’s plan calls for covering 10% of domestic demand for these minerals through the extraction of its own geological resources. A modest figure, but significantly higher than the current one. The EU’s own processing capacity — where Beijing’s dominance is also overwhelming — should be capable of covering 40% of annual consumption of strategic raw materials, with the aim of “avoiding bottlenecks in the intermediate stages.” Finally, recycling should be sufficient to supply 25% of EU needs.

Great potential in Spain

Spain is among the EU countries with the greatest, largely unexplored, potential in the mining sector, with its western and southern regions particularly rich in several of these resources. It is, among other things, Europe’s second-largest producer of copper and magnesite, a rock from which magnesium is extracted.

Aside from the 17 minerals identified as key by the recent European Law on Fundamental Raw Materials, approved in 2024, Spain is — according to the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge — the only producer of strontium and sepiolite, the former of fluorite and gypsum, and the latter of potassium salts. It also extracts nickel, tantalum, silicon, and tungsten. And it has deposits of lithium, cobalt, bismuth, and rare earths that have either been exploited in the past (as in the case of cobalt) or could be explored in the near future. However, it has a significant shortfall: it is barely capable of processing these raw minerals, the stage of the process that concentrates the added value and, therefore, provides the greatest economic return.

More than 30,000 people work in the 2,600 active mines in Spain, and their total production value exceeds €3.5 billion annually. “The economic value of the key raw materials — copper, fluorite, feldspar, strontium, tungsten, and tantalum — exceeds €850 million,” stated the presentation of the latest Mineral Raw Materials Action Plan 2025-2029, unveiled by the Spanish government just a few days ago. Criticism and social resistance to many of these projects due to their potential environmental impact, however, is the main obstacle to their final fruition.

This isn’t the first time Brussels has tried to speed up deadlines in specific economic sectors in the name of achieving its long-awaited strategic autonomy. In the midst of the energy crisis, with natural gas and electricity prices skyrocketing following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Commission shortened the processing and commissioning times for new renewable energy plants (wind and solar photovoltaic) to reduce the burning of fossil fuels and lower electricity bills. This move didn’t please several environmental groups, but was justified by a higher purpose: cutting ties with Moscow.

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