EU agrees mineral supply targets to cut reliance on China

Negotiators for EU governments and lawmakers reached a deal on Monday on targets for domestic supply of critical minerals such as lithium and nickel to reduce its reliance on third countries, principally China.

The European Commission proposed the Critical Raw Materials Act in March, a centrepiece of EU strategy to allow it to compete with the United States and China in making clean tech products. The proposal said the European Union should extract 10%, recycle 15% and process 40% of its annual needs by 2030 for 16 "strategic raw materials". The European Parliament and the Council, the grouping of EU governments, needed to agree on a common text. They did this on Monday, parties from both sides said, paving the way for the law to enter force in early 2024. Negotiators upgraded the recycling target to at least 25%. Parliament negotiators also said the European Commission would pass a related act in 2027 that set a recycling target related to annual waste collected, rather than consumption. The negotiators also agreed to add aluminium to the list of strategic raw materials as well as synthetic graphite. Natural graphite was already in the list. The latter inclusion reflects China's plan

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Source: reuters.com