Details of a new
The Commission selects 46 new strategic projects to strengthen the EU's supply of critical raw materials.
To strengthen EU supply chains and diversify sources of critical raw materials, the European Commission announced today the selection of 46 new strategic projects across 16 Member States. These projects will help meet the benchmarks set out in the Critical Raw Materials Act, which require that by 2030, EU capacity covers at least 10% of annual consumption for extraction, 40% for processing, and 25% for recycling of strategic raw materials, thereby boosting competitiveness, building greater resilience, and reducing reliance on single suppliers.
The new strategic projects are located in Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, and Sweden. They were selected from 102 applications received during the call for proposals that closed earlier this year.
The projects span various stages of the raw materials value chain: eight involve extraction, eleven involve processing, and nineteen involve recycling. Additionally, there are eight integrated projects—three combining extraction and processing, and five combining processing and recycling—supporting the EU’s integrated value chain approach. These strategic projects cover fourteen of the seventeen strategic raw materials listed in the Critical Raw Materials Act.
The projects will strengthen European value chains in the battery, defense, aerospace, and permanent magnet sectors. They include seven projects for lithium, twelve for nickel, ten for cobalt, five for manganese, and four for graphite, all aimed at supporting the EU battery value chain. Two projects concerning magnesium and three concerning tungsten will contribute to the defense and aerospace sectors, while four projects on rare earths will support the permanent magnet value chain.
The 46 projects—together with the 47 EU strategic projects and the 13 strategic projects in third countries selected in March and June of last year, respectively—are expected to contribute significantly to achieving the EU’s goals for de-risking and diversifying critical raw materials. These projects could meet all extraction targets for lithium, nickel, rare earths, magnesium, and tungsten, as well as the processing benchmarks for lithium and rare earths. They could also cover 89% of the processing benchmark for cobalt, and 57% and 51% for tungsten and magnesium respectively, while fully meeting recycling benchmarks for lithium, cobalt, and rare earths.
Progress on the first list of strategic projects
The strategic projects selected in 2025 are already moving towards implementation. To date, 25 strategic projects have completed their environmental impact assessments and 17 have obtained construction permits, thanks to Member State "one-stop shops" that help accelerate permitting procedures.
With the RESourceEU Communication from last December, the EU is accelerating and scaling up its efforts. Since the launch of RESourceEU, Team Europe has mobilized over €2 billion in financial support, committed through the Innovation Fund, State aid, and the European Investment Bank. Several projects have made significant progress in securing off-take agreements. In addition, the Raw Materials Mechanism, established to aggregate supply and demand and identify potential buyers, has generated more than 30 matches for 10 materials.
Background
The Critical Raw Materials Act entered into force on 23 May 2024. It establishes measures to strengthen the EU's capacity across critical raw material value chains and to diversify its sources of supply. The Commission launched two calls for applications for strategic projects. The deadline for the first call was 22 August 2024, and the deadline for the second is 15 January 2026.
For this second call, the Commission received 102 applications for projects located in 18 EU Member States. Of these, the Commission and external experts evaluated 92 applications against the criteria set out in the Critical Raw Materials Act, such as security of supply, technical feasibility, environmental, social, and governance standards, and cross-border benefits for the EU. Furthermore, the Commission...