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The European Commission is finalizing the presentation of its first strategic projects to boost the mining of critical materials in the EU. In a volatile geopolitical environment, Europe’s monumental dependence on countries like China for essential raw materials poses a high risk that Brussels wants to control. The EU executive is thus seeking to increase long-term autonomy in the extraction and processing of essential minerals for sectors such as the automotive industry, renewable energy, and defense. In the short and medium term, it hopes to build up reserves to withstand requirements.

The European Union wants to guarantee access to these key resources. “We have identified 17 strategic raw materials for our green, digital, defense, and space transitions. For most of them, we are heavily dependent on external supplies,” explained European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Stéphane Séjourné last Tuesday in Brussels. “Our goal is to have reserves that can cover at least the needs of European industry for a period of one year.”

These are “materials such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel, used to produce batteries; gallium for solar panels; raw boron for wind turbines; titanium and tungsten in the space and defense sectors,” Séjourné explained in a meeting with a group of journalists from Spanish newspapers, including EL PAÍS, invited by the Commission.