On 7 October, during the COP27 in Egypt, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Alikhan Smailov, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, signed a Memorandum of Understanding establishing a partnership between the EU and Kazakhstan.
The agreement aims to ensure the development of a secure and sustainable supply of raw materials and refined materials. It also aims to develop renewable hydrogen and battery value chains, to boost the green and digital transformation of both sides' economies.
The partnership is centred around three areas of collaboration:
Closer economic and industrial integration in the strategic value chains of raw materials, batteries and renewable hydrogen
Increasing the resilience of raw material, battery and renewable hydrogen supply chains
Closer bilateral cooperation on capacity-building, skills and research & innovation on topics through
The EU and Kazakhstan will develop a roadmap for 2023-2024, including concrete joint actions agreed within six months of the signature of the Partnership.
To read more, please click here.
UPDATE: Yesterday, Commission President von der Leyen and President of Namibia Hage Geingob signed a Memorandum of Understanding establishing a strategic partnership between the EU and Namibia
The aim of the partnership is to ensure the development of a secure and sustainable supply of raw materials, refined materials and renewable hydrogen to support the green and digital transformation of the partners' economies.
The partnership will promote Namibia by supporting the development of the mining and renewable hydrogen value chains. The partnership contains six main pillars:
Integration of raw materials and renewable hydrogen value chains, including networking, new business models and promotion and facilitation of trade and investment linkages;
Cooperation to leverage ESG Criteria and align with international standards;
Mobilisation of funding for the development of soft and hard infrastructure required for projects development and for leveraging private sector funding;
Capacity building, training and skills development along raw materials value chains;
Co-operation on research and innovation along the raw materials value chain;
Regulatory alignment, standards and certification.
The EU and Namibia have committed to publish an operational Roadmap for 2023-2024, with concrete joint actions agreed within six months of the signature of the Memorandum of Understanding.
To read more, please click here.