Europe has just over four years to cut its reliance on China for the metals behind electric cars, wind turbines, and weapons. Brussels has picked 46 new projects to speed things up, yet most of last year’s batch still lack a building permit.

As the buzz around sovereignty and strategic resilience grows ever louder in Brussels, the European Commission is keen to wean the bloc off its dependencies, particularly on China. It announced its latest picks on Friday. The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) is its main tool. It designates 17 strategic raw materials as particularly crucial. They include lithium, nickel, cobalt, and graphite for electric vehicle batteries, rare earths for magnets used in wind turbines, tungsten for military equipment, and gallium for semiconductors.

The Commission chose the 46 new strategic projects, located in 16 member states, from more than 100 applications. The call closed in January. The projects should help Europe hit the benchmarks set in the CRMA. Stéphane Séjourné, Executive Vice-President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, said the Commission was using every means at its disposal to open mines, develop processing and recycling capacities, and secure supply chains. “Our approach is simple: reduce dependency, increase production in Europe. We have the resources, the projects and the funding: now we are picking up the pace,” he added.

Ambitious targets, practical perks

By 2030, the EU wants to mine at least 10 per cent of the strategic raw materials it consumes, process 40 per cent, and recycle 25 per cent ‘in-house’. At the same time, no more than 65 per cent of any such material should come from a single non-EU country.

Strategic project status brings projects several significant benefits. Permitting is faster, with a single national contact point and fixed deadlines. Projects also get easier access to finance, including state aid clearance. The Commission helps them find buyers, too, by matching suppliers with long-term customers, known as offtake coordination. These advantages are crucial because slow permits and scarce funding typically represent the biggest constraints on the EU’s extraction and processing capacities for critical raw materials.

Strategic project status does not automatically bring direct EU funding. The Commission says, however, that it makes money easier to secure. “For the strategic projects selected in 2025, more than €2 billion in financial support has already been mobilised through the Innovation Fund, State aid, and the European Investment Bank,” it noted.

Euromines, which represents Europe’s mining industry, says the targets depend on faster, simpler permitting, coherent policies, and domestic investment. “The path to European autonomy is paved with critical minerals. To secure our future, we must match our environmental ambitions with a practical commitment to domestic production and streamlined investment,” said Rolf Kuby, its Director General. He called for “policies that actively support investment in European raw material production and extraction technologies”.

Long road from permit to mine

The new projects cover 15 of the 17 strategic raw materials under the CRMA, including lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, graphite, magnesium, tungsten, titanium, and silicon metal. Eight focus on extraction, 11 on processing, and 19 on recycling. The remaining eight combine two stages. Together, they will need about €21.1bn in capital investment to become operational.

The Commission selected the first 47 strategic projects in March last year and designated a further 13 in non-EU countries in June 2025. Of the projects selected in 2025, 25 have completed their environmental impact assessment and 17 have obtained a construction permit. Europe still has a long way to go to hit its 2030 targets.

With Friday’s list, the Commission has designated 106 strategic projects in total. It plans to open a new call for applications towards the end of 2026.

Green groups sound the alarm

Environmental groups are less enthusiastic. The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) warns that ‘strategic’ status does not guarantee compliance with social or environmental standards. It says 11 projects from the 2025 batch failed the Commission’s own expert assessment. “To improve the legitimacy of strategic projects, each project must be assessed on its own merits, including its potential environmental and social impacts,” the EEB said.

Pollution costs must be paid by polluters, not the public. — Sara Johansson, Policy Manager for Water, EEB

The NGO is particularly worried about the planned revision of the Water Framework Directive. The revision aims to “accelerate access to Critical Raw Materials in the EU”. Sara Johansson, Policy Manager for Water at the EEB, did not mince her words. “Europe’s freshwater ecosystems are worth over €11 trillion and are the foundation of Europe’s prosperity and resilience. The European Commission must drop its plans to revise the Water Framework Directive that would grant mining companies a licence to pollute. Pollution costs must be paid by polluters, not the public.”