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For now, the €3 billion will be mobilized from both EU funds and from the European Investment Bank, which said earlier this year it would make €2 billion of financing available for critical mineral investments, according to the RESourceEU communication unveiled Wednesday. The EU executive will commit resources from the InvestEU fund, the Innovation Fund, the Battery Booster, the European Defence Industry Programme and the Horizon Europe research program.
The proposal is “not so much a strategy as it is an action plan,” an EU Commission official said, calling it an “acceleration” of the Critical Raw Materials Act.
It will particularly support “strategic projects and other relevant projects ready to reduce dependency [on a single third country] by up to 50 percent by 2029 for the battery, rare earths and defence raw materials value chain.”
According to the communication, the EU executive plans to open a control center for EU supplies of raw materials such as lithium and cobalt in 2026 — a measure already announced in the Commission’s work program. This “European Critical Raw Materials Centre” will be tasked with monitoring and assessing needs, coordinating joint purchasing and stockpiling.
On top of that, the Commission suggests tweaks to the CRMA to facilitate permitting and to introduce measures to ensure scrap remains within the EU, such as restrictions on exporting permanent magnet scrap early next year.
Pieter Haeck contributed reporting. This story has been updated.