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The European Union, the world’s largest single market, has introduced new measures to reduce their “dependency” on mineral imports from outside the bloc.
The European Council adopted the Critical Raw Materials Act on June 30, a regulation that seeks to utilise the bloc’s Common Market and partnerships to “diversify critical raw material supply chains, which currently rely on imports from a handful of third countries.”
A spokesperson of the European Commission told The EastAfrican that the bloc has taken this route because of the lessons they have learnt from the recent supply-chain disruptions that significantly impacted their supply and consequently costs of products associated with the raw materials.
“The urgency of such measures is made clear by the recent Covid-19related supply disruptions, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, disrupting, for example, nickel and titanium markets, and the Chinese export restrictions on gallium and germanium introduced last week,” the spokesperson said.
Under the new regulations, EU will source up to 65 percent of its annual consumption of critical and strategic raw materials from within the bloc, dealing a blow to countries in the region that have been exporting to the region.
At least 10 percent of the minerals used in the bloc will now be extracted from countries in the union, 40 percent will come from processing, and 15 percent will come from domestic recycling of the critical and strategic minerals.
According to the spokesperson, domestic extraction of the minerals in the EU has been low due to a number of factors, including “long permitting procedures, local opposition, high energy costs, high labour costs, and high costs of regulatory compliance.”
The Act now seeks to address most of these hurdles. – The EastAfrican.
Online Reporter