🌱 Is there progress in extraction capacity?
Under the Green Deal, the EU set itself the target to produce at least 10% of its annual consumption of strategic raw materials through its own extraction capacity by 2030. In 2022, the EU reached levels above its 10% target for cobalt, copper, lithium, and nickel. The EU’s self-sufficiency level is, however, consistently below 2% for bismuth, boron, gallium, germanium, magnesium, natural graphite, titanium, platinum group metals, as well as heavy and light rare earth elements. Similarly, the EU’s self-sufficiency level for manganese was also below the 10% target between 2016 and 2022.
🌱 Is there progress in processing capacity?
Under the Green Deal, the EU set itself the target to produce at least 40% of its annual consumption of strategic raw materials through its own processing capacity by 2030. In the period from 2011 to 2022, the EU managed to produce over 80% of its annual consumption of copper through its own processing capacity. The EU also met its 40% target for cobalt and germanium in 2022. The EU, however, did not meet its self-sufficiency targets for bismuth, boron, gallium, and the platinum group metals in 2022. Moreover, the EU currently has “no self-sufficiency to process lithium, magnesium, natural graphite, titanium”, as well as heavy and light rare earth elements.
🌱 Is there progress in recycling capacity?
Under the Green Deal, the EU set itself the target to produce at least 25% of its annual consumption of strategic raw materials through its own recycling capacity by 2030. The EU’s recycling capacity was above the 25% target for copper and tungsten in 2022. Yet, the capacity was only between 5% and 22% for cobalt, magnesium, manganese, nickel, titanium, platinum group metals, as well as heavy and light rare earth elements in 2022. Moreover, the EU’s recycling capacity was under 5% for bismuth, boron, gallium, germanium, lithium, and natural graphite.
🌱 Is there progress in diversifying imports?
Under the Green Deal, the EU set itself the target to diversify its imports of strategic raw materials. By 2030, no third country is to account for over 65% of the EU’s annual consumption of any given strategic raw material. There is, however, still a low diversification of sourcing countries. For half of the 16 strategic raw materials, the values are above the 65% target. The materials for which the target is yet to be reached includes “bismuth, gallium, lithium, magnesium, platinum group metals, and both heavy and light rare earth elements”.
🌱 What is needed to meet the targets?
Public-private commitments are key for meeting the Green Deal’s targets on critical raw materials. Similarly, tackling market and regulatory fragmentation is essential for accelerating the innovation needed to reach net-zero.
Read more about the targets and progress here:
- https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC140372