The European Commission has today published the Critical Raw Materials Act.
The Regulation aims to propose a comprehensive set of actions to ensure secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials.
The Act includes an updated version of the EU list of critical raw materials and defines, for the first time, a list of strategic raw materials. The latter list of materials are considered crucial to technologies important to the EU's green and digital ambitions and for defence and space applications.
The Regulation also sets clear benchmarks for domestic capacities along the strategic raw material supply chains:
At least 10% of the EU's annual consumption for extraction
At least 40% of the EU's annual consumption for processing
At least 15% of the EU's annual consumption for recycling
Not more than 65% of the Union's annual consumption of each strategic raw material at any relevant stage of processing from a single third country.
The act also creates the label of so-called "Strategic Projects" for strategic raw materials which will benefit from streamlined permitting processes and better access to finance.
Further measures in terms of circularity are also foreseen.
The CRM Act is available here.
The CRM Alliance will review the Regulation and accompanying documents, and provide its feedback on the impact of the act to the co-legislators.