The EU industry commissioner, Stéphane Séjourné, said on Friday that the bloc would support 46 new strategic projects to accelerate supplies of critical raw materials by 2030, with a total funding cost of €21bn (£17.8bn). The projects include plants for lithium, gallium and rare earths needed for the auto, defence and renewable energy industries.
"We could face a crisis in the coming months," Séjourné said. "We may face trade tensions that could also trigger a crisis in a number of sectors. We need to be prepared for that. And we're getting ready right now."
The announcement comes as the EU's trade commissioner, Maroš Šefčovič, continues talks in Beijing aimed at reducing China's trade surplus with the bloc, which Séjourné described as "unsustainable".
Amid some scepticism over the EU's ability to meet its 2030 targets to reduce dependencies on China, Séjourné highlighted three "emblematic" projects already designated as strategic and earmarked for accelerated permits. These include the Carester rare earths plant near Pau in south-western France, expected to be operational in late 2026, which will produce dysprosium and terbium — raw materials for which the EU is "almost entirely dependent on China" and used in magnets for electric vehicles and offshore wind turbines. "This single project could account for about 15% of global production of these oxides," Séjourné said. He also named a gallium plant in Greece already running and Keliber, a lithium extraction and processing plant in Finland, operational after €150m support from the European Investment Bank.
The 46 projects are the second batch to receive flagship status since the Critical Raw Materials Act of 2024, which legally mandates the European Commission to reduce the bloc's dependency on foreign countries. The EU hopes to follow Japan, which reduced its dependency on China for rare earths to 60% from 90% since 2011, when Beijing prohibited exports to about 20 entities in Japan.