The properties of certain mineral raw materials underpin virtually every aspect of modern life. From smartphones to wind turbines, these materials enable the technologies that power our economies and promise to deliver our climate goals. Others prove irreplaceable for digital infrastructure, aerospace engineering, and defence systems. Building new industrial capacities in these sectors depends fundamentally on securing both access to these raw materials and the capabilities to process them.
Europe’s dependence on imported raw materials stretches back decades, punctuated by periodic supply crises that briefly thrust resource security into the spotlight. Discussions during the oil shocks of the 1970s echo today’s debates in striking ways. Yet once each crisis passed, the issue retreated to the political margins. Through the 1990s and well into the 2000s, confidence in global market reliability ran so high that Europe actively dismantled its domestic extraction and processing capabilities, outsourcing these industries without concern.
A First EU Policy Shift
China’s meteoric rise since the early 2000s shattered this complacency. Beijing’s rapid transformation into the dominant force in global raw material extraction and processing created an environment where securing certain materials became increasingly expensive and difficult for European manufacturers. The EU responded in 2008 with the Raw Materials Initiative (RMI), built on three strategic pillars: securing access to global deposits, promoting European sources, and increasing resource efficiency through recycling.
This strategy centred on identifying “critical” raw materials—recognising that vulnerability of supply, not import dependence alone, posed the real threat. The EU has applied criteria for criticality since 2011, weighing economic importance for European industry against supply shortage risks relative to other assessed materials. Yet these criteria and their metrics involve considerable subjective judgment.
In 2011, the EU classified 14 materials as Critical Raw Materials (CRMs), including gallium, cobalt, magnesium, rare earth elements, and tantalum. By 2023, that list had ballooned to 34, reflecting both evolving industrial needs and mounting geopolitical pressures.
Fundamentally New Challenges
Three converging dynamics have fundamentally transformed the EU’s relationship with CRMs in recent years. First, the global push toward green and digital transformation is driving unprecedented demand. Wind turbines, electric vehicles, batteries, and semiconductors all depend heavily on rare earth elements, lithium, cobalt, and other specialised materials. Projections indicate that global demand for minerals essential to energy and mobility transitions will at least double by 2050. The EU’s demand for certain minerals is expected to multiply several times over. Lithium and graphite consumption in Europe could increase more than twentyfold during this period.
Second, geopolitical instability has exposed the fragility of assumptions about supply chain reliability. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the vulnerability of just-in-time logistics. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine weaponised energy dependencies. Rising tensions between Washington and Beijing have transformed technology supply chains into strategic battlegrounds.
Most troubling for Europe, China’s dominance in processing critical materials—coupled with its increasing willingness to leverage that position in trade disputes—represents an Achilles heel for EU supply chains. A JRC study identified that 53 of 70 supply chain steps for 15 key twin transformation technologies are vulnerable, including all raw material processing stages. The EU, once confident in the resilience of global trade, now confronts urgent questions about securing essential inputs when major suppliers may become unreliable or even hostile.
Third, the EU has responded to these challenges with policies like the Net Zero Industry Act, aiming to rebuild production capacities in Europe for key green and digital transformation products. This push for “strategic autonomy” requires securing the raw materials indispensable for these production capacities. Simultaneously, growing demand for military and space technologies intensifies the need for critical resources with dual-use applications.
A Second EU Policy Shift
These fundamental changes demanded new elements and strategic reorientation in EU resource policy. During the 2010s, RMI-based measures focused primarily on the external pillar, limited mainly to incorporating energy and raw material chapters into free trade agreements. New policies introduced fresh instruments for external engagement whilst targeting internal primary and secondary sources.
Central to this shift is the new subgroup of Strategic Raw Materials (SRMs) within the CRM list. Materials earn strategic designation based on their significance for relevant strategic technologies in green and digital transitions, defence, or aerospace applications. The assessment also considers projected global demand growth and potential production constraints. Unlike CRM metrics, SRM criteria incorporate forward-looking elements. The 17 materials meeting these criteria include rare earths, copper, lithium, natural graphite, and tungsten.
The 2024 Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) created, for the first time, a legal framework for expanding extraction and processing of SRMs within Europe. The CRMA sets ambitious targets: by 2030, the EU should extract 10 percent of its strategic raw material needs domestically, process 40 percent, and recycle 25 percent. No single country should supply more than 65 percent of any strategic material.
While these targets aren’t legally binding, they serve as political guidelines, supported by incentives including streamlined permit timelines for raw material projects across the EU. Yet even if achieved, these goals underscore Europe’s continued import dependence: 90 percent of required SRMs would still be mined outside Europe, with 60 percent processed in third countries.
Strategic Partnerships as New Approach
To improve access to raw materials from non-EU countries, the strategic approach has evolved from seeking “access to raw materials on world markets at undistorted conditions” to pursuing fair and sustainable access through “raw materials diplomacy focused on reaching out to third countries through strategic partnerships and policy dialogues“. New and adapted external policy instruments include the Raw Materials Club, Strategic Partnerships, and Energy and Raw Material Chapters in free trade agreements.
Strategic Partnerships on raw materials are particularly tied to EU industrial policies. These non-binding agreements between the EU and resource-rich countries aim to link European production capacities with raw material supply chains in partner nations. The EU positions itself as an alternative partner, offering incentives such as sustainable mining support, increased investment, and mutual economic benefits. These partnerships also signal to European industries that long-term supply from partner countries can be secured.
Since 2021, the EU has concluded 14 Strategic Partnerships on raw materials with diverse partners ranging from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Zambia to Norway, Australia, and Serbia. Whether these agreements will deliver enhanced supply remains uncertain. The EU’s incentives remain non-binding and difficult to implement, primarily due to unenforceable sustainability standards and the absence of a coherent strategy for promoting investment and value creation in the respective raw materials sectors.
Re-orientation Toward Old Policy Focus Possible
In early 2025, the new Commission introduced Clean Trade and Investment Partnerships (CTIPs), reflecting a general shift in priorities from the Green Deal toward enhancing competitiveness. These partnerships aim to complement or enable free trade agreements, improving raw material access through trade and investment regulations and regulatory cooperation. This signals that traditional instruments like free trade agreements and regulatory cooperation remain EU priorities.
Consequently, no current EU raw materials policy instruments or strategies effectively align European interests with the development needs of resource-rich partner countries, particularly in the Global South. This misalignment jeopardises the EU’s access to raw materials essential for building domestic green production capacities.
Circular Economy as Crucial Long-term Factor
Such alignment becomes even more critical when considering the long-term pathway toward a circular economy and CRM supply through secondary sources. While rapid development of a digital and green EU economy initially depends heavily on raw material imports, secondary materials could eventually become the primary source as products reach end-of-life and recycling technologies mature. This creates a profound challenge for resource-rich countries: after ramping up extraction to meet Europe’s short-term surge in demand, they could face collapsing markets as circular systems take hold.
Building a resilient and responsible raw materials strategy requires the EU to fundamentally rethink its approach to international partnerships. Raw materials policy must be recognised as integral to—and a key enabler of—Europe’s broader green and industrial transformation.
In the short to medium term, this means genuinely enforcing environmental and social standards in extractive sectors and actively supporting resource-rich countries’ efforts to move beyond unprocessed raw material exports, particularly in the Global South. Looking ahead, as Europe transitions toward a circular economy, these partner countries must not be abandoned. The long-term shift from primary extraction to secondary material use must incorporate international cooperation on recycling technologies, waste management, and resource efficiency. Only by integrating these nations into future circular systems can the EU ensure an equitable and sustainable raw materials transition for all.
Bernhard Tröster is a researcher at the Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE) in Vienna.
Simela Papatheophilou is a researcher at ÖFSE - Austrian Foundation for Development Research.
Karin Küblböck is an economist and senior researcher at the Austrian Foundation for Development Research, with a focus on natural resource policies, private sector development, international trade and investment policies.