EU picks 13 new critical material projects, including in Greenland
PARIS, June 4 (Reuters) - The European Commission on Wednesday announced 13 new raw material projects outside the bloc to increase its supplies of metals and minerals essential for it to stay competitive in the energy transition as well as defence and aerospace.
The EU's announcement follows China's decision in April to impose export curbs on rare earth magnets until new licences are obtained, leaving diplomats, carmakers and other executives from Europe and elsewhere scrambling to secure meetings with Beijing officials and avert factory shutdowns.
China controls more than 90% of global processing capacity for the magnets, used in everything from vehicles and fighter jets to home appliances. Beijing is also the main supplier of many key inputs for renewable energy, especially rare earths, batteries and solar panels, a situation Brussels is keen to change.
The EU list is part of the implementation of the Critical Raw Material Act agreed in 2023 under which the bloc aims to mine 10%, process 40% and recycle 25% of its needs by 2030.
Most of the new projects will be focused on materials essential for electric vehicle batteries and battery storage including lithium, cobalt, manganese and graphite. Two projects for rare earths are located in Malawi and South Africa. Rare earths are used to produce magnets in wind turbines.
The projects are located in Britain, Canada, Greenland, Kazakhstan, Norway, Serbia, Ukraine, Zambia, Brazil and the French territory of New Caledonia.
The British project is to extract tungsten and the ones in Ukraine and Greenland will be for graphite, with the project in Greenland run by GreenRoc Strategic Materials (GROC.L), opens new tab.
Greenland has been a point of tension between Brussels and Washington this year after U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly said he wanted to acquire the Danish overseas territory.
U.S. officials have discussed a plan to pull Greenland into America's sphere of influence with a type of agreement called COFA that the United States has used to maintain close ties with several Pacific Island nations. Under COFA, the U.S. government offers essential services and in exchange, the U.S. military operates freely while trade with the U.S. is largely duty-free.
The EU has estimated that the projects would need an overall capital investment of 5.5 billion euros ($6.27 billion) to get off the ground. They would receive coordinated financial support and buyer interest from the Commission, member states and lenders.
The new list brings the total number of strategic projects to 60. In March, the Commission announced 47 projects within the EU.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
Israel-Iran live: Israel says dozens injured after latest Iranian attack; Putin says potential for conflict to escalate is 'disturbing'
Israel says dozens of people have been injured in fresh attacks by Iran. Meanwhile, European ministers have held talks with Iran's foreign minister. Earlier, the UK government said it would get Britons out of Israel as soon as possible. Listen to Trump 100 as you scroll.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
What was the worst moment in Scottish history?
Scotland's stormy past, with its roll call of battles and assassinations, revolutions and revolts, can sometimes read like a masterclass in shooting ourselves in the foot. History, by definition, is a series of dramas stitched together by a running narrative in which those responsible for life-changing decisions, whether triumphant or disastrous, are held accountable: lauded, lambasted or simply airbrushed from the record. If asked to nominate the worst decision in Scottish history, most of us would have little problem coming up with a list, with several contenders jockeying for the dubious honour of first place. Some might say, of course, that even to ask this question is to indulge in a national stereotype, the bittersweet compulsion to pick at old scabs. Can you blame us? It feels as if for every brilliant innovation or intellectual breakthrough there has been an event, often avoidable, that has left the country reeling. Take the Battle of Flodden in 1513, which remains one of the frontrunners for the most reckless and needless decision ever made. When James IV marched into England and confronted Henry VIII's troops near the border, he had a larger army and a strong strategic advantage. Shortly before battle commenced, however, he switched position, rendering his cannons useless as they shot far beyond range. Even worse, when his men charged down the hillside they were trapped in mud, allowing the English to pick them off. Around 10,000 Scots died, including the king and many of the country's aristocracy. Since then, Flodden has become a byword for self-inflicted disaster, as when in 1961, one of the best Scottish football teams ever fielded lost 9-3 to England. The goalkeeper Frank Haffey was so vilified he emigrated to Australia. A rather worse calamity was the Darien Scheme of 1695. The idea of setting up a colony in Panama to trade with the Pacific and Atlantic was not, in theory, a bad one. But climate, geography and politics turned a potentially money-spinning venture into a nightmare, bringing the country close to bankruptcy. This debacle led almost directly to the Union of Parliaments, with whose consequences, good and ill, we're still grappling. 1707 remains a sour date for those who, despite the economic benefits the Union brought, say we threw away our independence for the enrichment of a handful of self-serving toffs. Dozens of dates vie for attention once, like fossil hunters, you start looking for footprints from the past. You could point to the Jacobites turning back at Derby in 1745 rather than marching on London, as planned. Who knows what might have happened had they taken the English capital. Yet I would argue that the entire Jacobite crusade was a mistake, given what followed: harsh reprisals and ill-feeling against the Highlands and Islands, an entrenching of anti-Catholic sentiment, and the start of an era of mass-emigration from the region, whose reverberations endure. The same, of course, could be said for the Clearances. Although the emptying of glens and straths to make way for sheep in counties such as Sutherland and Caithness was the work of more than one individual, the nation was brutalised by this barbaric process. Not only was it immeasurably cruel to those who were displaced but its environmentally baleful legacy lives on. There are countless other low points, among them the near collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2008 under Fred Goodwin's pugnaciously acquisitive regime. Overnight, the country's centuries-old pride for fiscal prudence evaporated. I'd also suggest that, for those keen to end the Union, holding the independence referendum in 2014 was, in retrospect, a mistake. Had it come a few years later, after the Brexit referendum — and when 56 of 59 Scottish MPs at Westminster were SNP — a majority might well have voted yes. For me, however, the most momentous date of all is 16 May, 1568. On that day, Mary, Queen of Scots stepped into a boat and sailed across the Solway Firth to England. Despite the protestations of her closest advisers, she was determined to seek help from Elizabeth I, confident that with her cousin's support she could regain the throne that had been forcibly taken from her. It was a stupendous miscalculation, one so ill-advised that before departing she was obliged to sign a statement, produced by her inner circle, saying she was acting against their advice. How Mary could have thought she would be safe in England is inexplicable, given the threat she posed. Within days she recognised she was a prisoner. Increasingly isolated and unwell, during the next 19 or so years she was drawn into conspiracies against her cousin. Nevertheless, it was a forged postscript to one of Mary's coded letters, by an agent acting for Elizabeth's spy master Sir Francis Walsingham, that led to her execution. Had Mary not fled to England, things might have gone very differently. Although at the time of her abdication she was reviled for allegedly colluding in her husband Darnley's murder, support for her had since grown. It was entirely possible that she could have raised an army, overthrown her enemies, and lived to reign for many more years. How different Scotland might then have looked. And how much more vulnerable England would have been, with a potential ally of European Catholic powers as a neighbour. Indeed, a Catholic invasion could have reshaped the entire British isles. You can also wonder what sort of man her son, the future James VI and I, would have been if raised by his mother rather than by fanatical Protestants. Might the shameful witchhunts he set in motion have been averted? But there's another lingering legacy of Mary's fatal error. Since her beheading at Fotheringhay Castle she has been cast as a tragic figure, either a heroine or a weak and foolish woman, depending on your view. In an era of profound misogyny, promoted by the likes of John Knox, her story became a cautionary tale about the fallibility of women and their inability to be leaders. An echo of that narrative remains to this day. One bad decision; so many consequences. Exile: The Captive Years of Mary, Queen of Scots by Rosemary Goring is published on 3 July by Birlinn.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Sabotage at Brize Norton springs from a wider underlying problem
The attack on aircraft at RAF Brize Norton by members of Palestine Action resulted in serious damage to two Airbus Voyagers: extremely expensive aircraft leased under the £10 billion Air Tanker project. Had this been carried out by a foreign government, it would have been an act of war. As it is, it was sabotage and the Government will, rightly, proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist group. To say that this was a failure of security is an understatement. At a time when major wars are raging in Ukraine and the Middle East, RAF bases should be on high alert. Terrorists acting for Iran and Russia are no less active here than elsewhere in Europe and our Armed Forces should be managing their security on that basis. But these saboteurs do not appear likely to be covert operatives despatched to these shores by organisations overseas. The fact is that there are large numbers of people resident here in Britain who support terrorism in various forms, as was made plain by the mass London marches in 'solidarity with Palestine' after the October 7 atrocities before Israel had made any response to them. That widespread empathy for terrorism is the underlying sickness. This damaging attack is merely a symptom of a wider Western malaise.
