EU minerals plan targets processing bottlenecks

The European Commission proposed its Critical Raw Materials Act on 16 March 2023, seeking more secure supplies for industries including digital technology. Its 2030 benchmarks cover extraction, processing and recycling, alongside diversifying imports. Parliament and Council must agree the regulation before it can take effect.

Photo: European flags. © Håkan Dahlström, Spain, 2010 (CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons). Resized and cropped. Historical EU illustration, not the announcement.

The original proposal seeks overall EU capacity approaching or reaching 10% of annual strategic-material consumption for extraction, where reserves allow, 40% for processing and 15% for recycling. Processing includes intermediate steps. The diversification benchmark limits reliance on any single outside country to 65% of consumption of each strategic material at any relevant processing stage.

Changing ore suppliers alone doesn't diversify refining.

The distinction between strategic and critical materials determines which tools apply. The Commission assesses criticality through economic importance and supply risk. Its strategic category focuses on materials for sectors such as digital technology whose demand growth and difficulty of scaling production could create future shortages. Capacity, diversification, stocks and joint-purchasing measures target strategic materials; broader provisions address monitoring, circularity and sustainability.

Recycling reaches into product information. Article 27 would require magnet-type labels on industrial robots and electric motors three years after entry into force, with defence and space products exempt. For specified magnet types, data would identify composition, location and removal steps. Article 28 separately permits minimum recycled-content shares after 2030, following an impact assessment, for products whose covered magnets together weigh over 0.2 kilograms.

Recovery instructions support a later market for recovered material, without immediate recycled-content quotas.

The financial mechanism is similarly conditional. The Commission's launch Q&A says the measures coordinate existing financing rather than introduce new resources or financing rules. Strategic Projects could get help arranging investment and off-take agreements, linking project developers with downstream buyers. Projects outside the EU could qualify too, subject to criteria including local value added.

Sources: Commission proposal; launch announcement; questions and answers.