On the 18th local time, the European Council passed the Critical Raw Materials Act (CMA), which has been in the works for nearly a year. The material list in the CRMA includes 34 key materials such as rare earths, lithium, nickel, cobalt and silicon, including 17 strategic materials.
The EU Council said these materials are crucial for the EU's green transition, digital transformation and defense and space industries. CRMA sets three standards for the EU's annual raw material consumption: 10% from local mining; 40% processed in the EU; 25% from recycled materials.
The EU's move is intended to reduce dependence on external supplies and improve the availability of raw materials. Zhao Yongsheng, a researcher at the National Institute of Opening-up at the University of International Business and Economics and director of the French Economic Research Center, said that taking the processing link as an example, it may involve the transfer of some industrial chain links to the EU, especially to Germany or Eastern European countries. Generally speaking, there will be changes, but compared with similar policies in the United States, the EU's behavior is expected to be relatively compliant.
Increasing local production The EU stated in the explanatory document that as the EU abandons fossil fuels and shifts to a clean energy system that requires more minerals, the EU's demand for base metals, battery materials, rare earths, etc. will grow exponentially. To achieve a green transition, the EU will need to increase local production of batteries, solar panels, permanent magnets and other clean technologies, which will require large-scale access to a variety of raw materials to meet the corresponding demand. To this end, the EU has listed 34 key materials, namely: aluminum/bauxite/alumina, coking coal, phosphorus, antimony, feldspar, light rare earth elements, scandium, arsenic, fluorite, magnesium, metallic silicon, heavy Spar, gallium, manganese, strontium, beryllium, germanium, natural graphite, tantalum, bismuth, hafnium, niobium, titanium metal, boron, helium, platinum group metals, tungsten, cobalt, heavy rare earth elements, phosphate rock, vanadium, copper and nickel.
The EU stated that most of its key raw materials are currently purchased from countries and regions outside the EU. While the EU will never hope to achieve "self-sufficiency", the goal is to diversify supply.
The EU also cited the example that currently, for some key raw materials, the EU only relies on one country. For example, Turkey provides 98% of the EU's boron supply, and South Africa meets 71% of the EU's platinum demand. There are many key raw materials from China, such as barite (45%), bismuth (65%), gallium ( 71%), germanium (45%), magnesium (97%), natural graphite (40%), scandium (67%), tungsten (32%), vanadium (62%), cerium (85%), lanthanum (85 %), neodymium (85%), praseodymium (85%), samarium (85%), dysprosium (100%), erbium (100%), europium (100%), gadolinium (100%), holmium (100%) , tritium (100%), terbium (100%), thorium (100%) and yttrium (100%) all come from China. In particular, China provides 100% of the EU's heavy rare earth elements.
