The European Commission (EC) has selected 46 new strategic projects in 16 Member States aimed at improving the EU’s access to critical raw materials.
The announcement is part of the EU’s ongoing efforts to meet objectives outlined in the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA).
These targets include achieving at least 10% of the EU’s annual consumption for extraction, 40% for processing and 25% for strategic raw materials recycling by 2030.
The newly selected projects are spread across Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Greece, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Slovakia and Sweden.
The EC selected these initiatives from 102 applications received during a recent call, which closed earlier this year.
The projects are focused on various parts of the raw materials value chain. Eight target extraction, 11 address processing and 19 focus on recycling.
An additional eight are integrated projects, with three combining extraction and processing and five combining processing and recycling.
Together, the projects cover 15 out of 17 strategic raw materials identified under the CRMA.
Key raw materials supported include lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite, which are essential for the battery value chain.
Other projects address magnesium and tungsten for defence and aerospace, and rare earth elements (REEs) for permanent magnets.
In numbers, the selected projects include seven on lithium, 12 on nickel, ten on cobalt, five on manganese and four on graphite.
According to the Commission, these projects could fully meet the 2030 extraction benchmarks for several key materials and the processing targets for lithium and REEs, as well as achieve significant progress on cobalt, tungsten and magnesium processing.
The CRMA came into effect on 23 May 2024, setting out measures to enhance supply chain resilience.
The EC has indicated its intention to announce another call for strategic project applications towards the end of 2026.
