European Commission welcomes political agreement on the Critical Raw Materials Act

The Commission welcomes the political agreement reached today between the European Parliament and the Council on the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA). The Act sets out a series of comprehensive actions to ensure the EU's access to a secure, diversified, affordable and sustainable supply of critical raw materials. This is essential for the competitiveness of Europe, including for green and digital industries as well as defence and aerospace.  

The new rules help to increase domestic capacities for critical raw materials along the supply chain, complementing initiatives to diversify their supply through international partnerships supported by the Global Gateway facility. The agreed benchmarks specify that the EU should have the capacity to extract 10%*, process 40%, and recycle 25% of its annual consumption of strategic raw materials by 2030. In terms of recycling, the deal also ensures that we will progressively take into account waste to determine recycling objectives. The compromise also includes the objective to mitigate demand through resource efficiency and technological progress. The EU should also diversify its imports of strategic raw materials, so that it does not rely on a single source of supply for more than 65% of its consumption.