A landmark ruling that will strengthen the union’s supply chains for decades to come
Published: April 2024
In April 2024, the EU passed the Critical Raw Materials Act (“CRMA”) into law in a landmark accomplishment that will strengthen the union’s critical raw materials supply chains for decades to come, albeit not without some foreseeable challenges.
For strategic raw materials – a subset of critical raw materials deemed “crucial” to strategic technologies – the CRMA mandates that 10% of the EU’s annual consumption must be mined domestically, 40% must be processed domestically, and 25% of all processing waste and end-of-life scrap must be recycled domestically by 2030. Furthermore, the EU may not source over 65% of any SRM from a single nation.
Despite the CRMA’s applicability to strategic raw materials broadly, a detailed review of the act reveals a disproportionately high focus on raw materials used to produce rare earth permanent magnets, such as neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium, as well as battery-grade lithium used to produce batteries.
Industry experts at Adamas Intelligence, Tradium and Rawmaterials.net carried out a detailed review of the CRMA and co-authored a report examining the implications and viability of mandated targets for lithium and rare earth elements while highlighting potential challenges, opportunities and recommendations policymakers and industry stakeholders should be aware of.
