On 14 September 2022, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen announced a new Critical Raw Materials (CRM) Act for Europe to tilt the balance of power in critical supply chains it needs to strengthen and preserve.
The CRM Act provides an opportunity to deliver a European industrial agenda supporting sustainable growth and our bloc’s strategic autonomy while ensuring raw materials production and transformation at the highest environmental and social standards. Creating greater complementarity between the different policy areas will further help to ensure the success of the twin transition and deliver the objectives of the EU Green Deal.
However, the classification of European raw materials must be improved, and raw materials that aren’t deemed ‘scarce’ or ‘rare’ should not be left behind. Policy makers should introduce measures for all raw materials industries to help increase their supply security, obtain greater investments, and scale up recycling capacity to recover valuable secondary raw materials.
Strengthening Europe’s strategic autonomy in aluminium
Aluminium is the base metal for the green transition and plays a unique role in Europe’s transformation to a more sustainable, digital economy. Thanks to aluminium’s widespread use in clean technologies and essential applications, aluminium demand in Europe and globally will grow exponentially.
Increasing and preserving the capacity of Europe’s low-carbon primary aluminium production and world-class recycling sector is the only way Europe can meet the growing aluminium demand and achieve strategic autonomy. To do so, we require an ambitious and coherent industrial strategy to inspire business confidence, attract investments and remain competitive globally. As part of this strategy, we call on policy makers to better reflect aluminium’s strategic role in the twin transition by improving the classification of our metal in EU raw materials legislation.