China’s export controls and market manipulation have triggered major global supply chain disruptions and exposed Europe’s vulnerabilities, from batteries to defence systems. The G7’s Critical Minerals Action Plan and NATO’s Defence-Critical Supply Chain Security Roadmap recognise these as risks to our collective security. 

Through RESourceEU, the European Commission must produce measures that address both short- and longer-term challenges. If European governments, financiers and offtakers do not invest rapidly in strategic raw materials projects, competitors and adversaries will beat them to the punch and secure these resources.

Beijing’s manipulation of and recent export restrictions on critical raw materials – many of which upon which Europe holds more than a 90% import reliance – put Europe’s industrial base and economy at risk. As China and the US pursue capital-backed political critical minerals agendas, the absence of a comprehensive European financial architecture exposes the continent’s limitations in catalysing necessary investment in critical mineral value chains.