To achieve its energy and climate goals, the European Union will need to electrify on a massive scale, which in turn, will require more raw materials for the manufacture of electricity-generating and storage equipment such as batteries, wind turbines and solar panels.
To this end, the European Commission presented its proposal in mid-March for a Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), with a view to advancing the EU’s energy and ecological transition.
Under it, EU countries must ensure that 10% of the extraction, 40% of the refining and 15% of the recycling of several dozen raw materials takes place on home turf by 2030.
On top of that, the Commission proposes the EU should no longer be more than 65% dependent on a single non-EU country for a single raw material – a difficult task given to what extent the EU currently depends on imported minerals, notably from China, which accounts for up to 90% of the value chain for certain materials.
Those targets have been at the cent
