Scandium, beryllium, gallium: Raw materials such as these have been the subject of many headlines and threats to take over territories by Trump. But why are these materials that hardly anyone can name so important for the global economy? And what is the EU doing to secure its supply? Rare earths and critical raw materials: the European Union needs these to push forward its strategic economic agendas. However, the 27-nation bloc is highly dependent on countries such as China for imports.
First things first: What kind of materials are we talking about? The European Union has identified 34 critical raw materials (CRM). Out of those 34 entries, 17 are classified as strategic raw materials (SRM). This list includes materials such as cobalt, copper, tungsten, lithium and nickel.
Critical raw materials are of high importance for the EU's economy. For them, there is a high risk of supply disruption: Their sources are highly concentrated and there is a lack of good substitutes. "Some of these elements are more or less irreplaceable, or at high cost," said John Seaman, a researcher at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri).
The SRMs are not to be confused with rare earths. Rare earths are a group of 17 chemical elements. They are mostly metals and some of them are not even that rare. The group contains elements such as cerium, europium, erbium and yttrium. All rare earths are part of the EU's list of CRMs.
"The more demand grows for these raw materials, the more people look for them and the more they find. The problem lies more in the relationship between extraction costs and market prices," Seaman said.
Why does the EU need them? Back in May 2024, the European Critical Raw Materials Act entered into force. With it, the EU aims to strengthen its strategic autonomy by increasing and diversifying its supply.
The act sets some benchmarks for domestic capacities along the strategic raw material supply chain to be reached by 2030: 10 percent of the EU's annual needs for extraction; 40 percent for processing and 25 percent for recycling. No more than 65 percent of the EU's annual needs of each strategic raw material at any relevant stage of processing should come from a single third country.
Demand is expected to increase sharply in the coming years, as critical raw materials and rare earths are essential for the EU's plans to move away from fossil fuels. Essential components of the EU's green transition, such as batteries or solar panels, need these raw materials. Likewise, they are part of industrial supply chains, and are used to make common products such as mobile phones work. They are also needed to develop strategic technologies in sectors such as defence.
One example: The Commission expects EU demand for lithium batteries, which power electric and energy storage vehicles, to increase 12-fold by 2030 and 21-fold by 2050, compared to current figures.
The EU's demand for rare earth metals, used in wind turbines and electric vehicles, is expected to increase five to six times by 2030 and six to seven times by 2050.
The Commission is planning to support a range of almost 50 projects and companies in the member states to reach its goals for the supply, processing and recycling of CRMs.
The European Commission on Tuesday published a list of 47 "strategic projects" which include opening mines for lithium and tungsten in its efforts to reduce its over-reliance on China. Are there supplies within the bloc? The EU can only rely on its member states for a fraction of its needs for some CRMs. There are currently no rare earths elements mined in Europe, although some deposits are known.
Portugal has the largest reserves of lithium - a CRM - in Europe, the eighth largest in the world, and is the only significant producer in the EU. The extraction of it has been contested by local communities in Portugal.
The Spanish Confederation of Mineral Raw Materials Industries (Primigea) believes that Europe urgently and rapidly needs to conduct exhaustive geological research in order to regain the autonomy that it has lost due to its 40 years of dependence on foreign resources. According to the confederation, Spain is among the countries with the greatest potential for mining key raw materials. It is the EU's second largest producer of copper and manganese.
Under pressure from Brussels, which wants to strengthen its industrial autonomy, the Spanish government has just presented a plan to accelerate exploration of its subsoil. "Spain has a very rich subsoil," particularly in terms of "strategic minerals", emphasised Ester Boixereu, a geologist at the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain (IGME).
Though again, extraction is met with resistance by local populations, concerned about the nuisances and environmental impact of these projects, particularly related to their high water consumption and the use of chemicals to recover metals contained underground.
The revival of the sector will increase "the risk of accidents" and worsen "the social and environmental impacts inherent in extractive activity", the environmentalist group Friends of the Earth recently criticised, denouncing a "lack of transparency" from the authorities.
Where does the EU import raw materials from? The EU currently sources most of its critical raw materials from outside the bloc. For example Türkiye provided 98 percent of the EU's boron as of 2024, and China a whopping 100 percent of the EU's supply of heavy rare earth elements, such as europium, terbium or yttrium.
For its part, South Africa is responsible for supplying 71 percent of the EU's needs for platinum metals.
Another important supplier is the Democratic Republic of Congo: 63 percent of the world''s cobalt, used in batteries and high-strength light alloys for the defense and aerospace sectors, comes from the war-torn state.
The EU has tried hard to diversify its sources, but has met with mixed success.
In 2024, the Commission signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Rwanda on critical raw materials. The hope for Brussels was to reduce its dependence on China for raw materials such as lithium, tin or gold. Rwanda would get funding to develop mining operations.
However, there have been controversies from the start as Rwandan fighters have been involved in conflicts in a minerals-rich border region in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. Due to the military escalation in North Kivu, the European Parliament in February called for a suspension of the MOU.
Belgium has lobbied intensively to impose sanctions on Rwanda over its support for the M23 rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo and suspend the MOU. The Commission however argues that a suspension would be counterproductive. Meanwhile, Rwanda decided last week to sever diplomatic relations with Belgium.
Are Greenland and Ukraine the answer? Greenland's resources have been the focus of US desires.
President Donald Trump's talk of taking over the autonomous Danish territory has raised alarm bells in Copenhagen and Brussels.
Greenland's subsoil contains lithium and graphite for batteries and rare earth elements. Greenland's rare earths are estimated at 36.1 billion tons by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS).
Despite the great interest in the minerals and raw materials found in the mountains and bays of Greenland, the number of mining projects in the pipeline is quite limited, according to Jakob Kl›ve Keiding, Chief Consultant at GEUS's Department of Mapping and Mineral Resources.
"The companies all have ambitions to start a mine, but not many projects are close to being realised," he says. The industry only accounts for about 1 percent of Greenland's economy.
Greenland remains almost entirely unexploited, and its minerals are seen as a potential springboard to independence, a goal backed by a majority of the island's 57,000 inhabitants.
In reality it is a long way from an exploitation licence to profitable production. Administrative challenges, difficult Arctic conditions and the limited infrastructure in Greenland, among other things, make it difficult to make money from extracting the raw materials.
Looking further east, the Commission has described Ukraine as "a potential source of more than twenty critical raw materials".
The country produces three critical minerals in particular: manganese, titanium and graphite, essential for electric batteries. Of the latter mineral, Ukraine accounts for "20 percent of the estimated global resources", notes the French Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (BRGM) In Ukraine's subsoils there is an expected reserve of several billion tons of rare earths but also other strategic materials such as graphite or lithium. Much of these deposits are however located in the Russian-controlled eastern region of the country.
Ukraine is close to signing an agreement on minerals with the US. "One of the things we are doing is signing a deal very shortly with respect to rare earths with Ukraine, which they have tremendous value in rare earths, and we appreciate that," Trump said a few days ago. He has been pressuring President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to sign economic deals to compensate the United States for its support in resisting Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The EU had tried to get in on the minerals game with Ukraine back in 2021 when they launched a strategic partnership on raw materials. Russia's invasion in 2022 put a stopper on putting the plans into practice. Afterwards, it failed to establish a mutual framework, so now the bloc is late to the party.
France also said in late February it was in discussions with Ukraine to access its mineral wealth, including for military use. The France-Ukraine talks started in October and were led by both countries' defence ministries, Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said.
Unlike Trump, France was not seeking any payback in the form of minerals from Ukraine for aid granted in support of Kyiv's war against Russia, he said.
This article is published twice a week. The content is based on news by agencies participating in the enr, in this case AFP, ANSA, Belga, dpa, EFE, LUSA, and Ritzau.
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