12 December 2023

European Parliament adopts Critical Raw Materials Act

Euromines welcomes the overwhelming majority in the plenary voter for the
adoption of the Report by the VP Nicola Beer on the proposal for the Critical
Raw Materials Act.

The vote follows successful conclusion of the interinstitutional negotiations and launches the final steps in the EU legislative process. Once the same text is co-approved by the 27 Member States in the vote in the Council of the European Union, the Act is published in the Official Journal and enters into force.

“I wish to applaud the overwhelming majority voting today and supporting the CRMA, including for streamlining the permitting for new, ESG driven, raw materials extraction in Europe. EU must come back on the mining map, otherwise we would simply continue exporting the responsibility for raw materials elsewhere.”

– says Rolf Kuby, Director General of Euromines –

“Contrary to what some critics might misrepresent, the Critical Raw Materials Act is part of the most stringent environmental framework. CRMA is firmly set in the ESG context, and whether we talk about mining, processing, or recycling, nowhere else extraction of raw materials is happening at such a high level of environmental protection as in Europe.”

Euromines highlights some of the key proposals in the Report, including:

– Strengthened role of Point of single Contact to facilitate permitting procedures.

– Recognized importance of byproducts to qualify as strategic projects.

– A market friendly approach to stress-testing based on publicly available data which protects business secrets and prevents competition distortion.

– Clarified priority status of strategic projects via inclusion of the infrastructure.

Euromines supports the Critical Raw Materials Act as a first building bloc of an open strategic autonomy and encourages further steps to improve and secure the framework conditions for responsible raw materials mining industry in Europe.

Media Contact: Kacper Chmielewski, Director Communications at Euromines, chmielewski@euromines.org