The European Commission has chosen 46 new strategic raw-material projects to benefit from faster permitting and help in bidding for public and private funding, as the bloc races to diversify supply chains and reduce reliance on China. The Commission put the total capital investment needed at about 21.1 billion euros (about 23.7 billion dollars), to be mobilised from public and private sources.
The projects are spread across 16 EU countries and cover 15 of the EU’s list of 17 strategic raw materials, including copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, graphite, rare earths, magnesium and tungsten. Notable projects include the Zinnwald lithium project in Germany, the Skouries mine in Greece, Arctial’s planned aluminium smelter in Finland and the Viscaria copper project in Sweden, with participation from major European industrial groups including Umicore, Aurubis and Leonardo.
The announcement was made on the same day the EU-China Trade and Investment Council holds its final session in Beijing, where securing an extension of the moratorium on Chinese rare-earth export controls is the EU’s most time-sensitive ask. The Commission said it had already mobilised more than 2 billion euros in public funding for projects picked last year, but developers warned in August that more projects could fail without urgent financing, and progress has been slow. The 2024 Critical Raw Materials Act sets the targets the pipeline is meant to meet: 10 percent of annual needs mined domestically, 40 percent processed and 25 percent recycled by 2030.