Potential inclusion of additional sectors 

Euromines represents the European mineral raw materials industry covering more than 42 different metals and minerals and employing 350.000 directly and about four times as many indirectly. Its members mine metals and minerals, which will play an important role for a sustainable transition and which make EU´s economy less dependent on raw materials from third countries and thus more resilient to crises. 

Within the EU, Member States have sovereign rights over their own natural resources and responsibility for mining and quarrying lies with the Member States within a defined framework of established ownership rights and national, regional, and local regulations – in particular specific mining legislation. 

The current review of the IED considers inter alia to possibly include extractive industries in the Directive. Nevertheless, such an inclusion would fail to recognise the specificities of the mining sector, the reasons are listed in the Euromines Position Paper.

Euromines welcomes that the European Commission embarks on one of the most contentious issues there is when it comes to merging decarbonization with industrial competitiveness. We appreciate the proactive engagement of the Commission but and we take into account the short-term nature of the measures to bridge the current crisis, but we deeply deplore that the proposal as it stands will not help the energy-intensive industry, that the issue of gas prices and the nexus to electricity prices is not considered – and even worse: the risk that the resilience Europe needs gets undermined. The reason for this: is the uncertainty of whether our industry will benefit from redistribution measures while still being exposed to the spot price.

The short-term proposal falls far too short to address the deficiencies of the market design and puts our industry in survival mode as the proposed measures are barely enough to survive. In absence of a re-design that drives prices down, ensure protection for energy-intensive industries such as mining that are key for the Green Deal and for which decarbonization means either direct or indirect electrification our industry requires from the proposed short-term measures to be effective.