EU to tackle China’s dominance of minerals to avoid ‘mistakes of the past’

Name: Russia-Europe gas pipeline temporarily closed for maintenance amid EU fuel shortage
Uploaded: 2022-09-14T13:00:21.000Z
Duration: 1 min 18 s
Description: Russia-Europe gas pipeline temporarily closed for maintenance amid EU fuel shortage

Comments by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen come as bloc attempts to wean itself off Russian oil and gas

Proposal targets China’s control over rare earth and lithium sectors with help from ‘like-minded partners’

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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers the annual state of the EU speech on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters

Finbarr Berminghamin Brussels

Published: 9:00pm, 14 Sep 2022Updated: 9:03pm, 14 Sep 2022

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed new critical minerals legislation on Wednesday in a bid to tackle China’s dominance in the rare earth and lithium sectors.

Von der Leyen said Europe needed to avoid getting “stuck in the kind of dependence we now see with oil and gas”, referring to the bloc’s efforts to decouple from Russian energy exports.

“We need to learn from the mistakes of the past,” she told the European Parliament. Von der Leyen noted that China controls the global processing industry, with almost 90 per cent of rare earths and 60 per cent of lithium processed in the country.

She did not offer specific details but said the EU would identify “strategic projects all along the supply chain” – including extracting, refining, processing and recycling – to accrue strategic reserves in sectors “where supply is at risk”.

EU internal market chief Thierry Breton said in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday that the legislation would focus on supply chain monitoring and stress testing, strategic stockpiling, and the establishment of a European sovereignty fund.

Breton said China’s 2010 move to block rare earth shipments to Japan over a territorial dispute showed that the “supply of raw materials has become a real geopolitical tool”. He also said the EU faced a “green policy paradox” in the potential replacement of gas pumped from Russia with solar panels made in China.

01:18

Russia-Europe gas pipeline temporarily closed for maintenance amid EU fuel shortage

Von der Leyen’s announcement came in the annual State of the European Union address, which sets out the commission’s legal and policy priorities for the coming year.

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