Regulation 2024/1252 - Framework for ensuring a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials - Main contents

Official Journal

of the European Union

EN

L series

2024/1252

3.5.2024

Access to raw materials is essential for the Union economy and the functioning of the internal market. There is a set of non-energy, non-agricultural raw materials that are considered to be critical due to their high economic importance and their exposure to high supply risk, often caused by a high concentration of supply from a few third countries. Given the key role of many such critical raw materials in realising the green and digital transitions and in light of their use for defence and aerospace applications demand is likely to increase exponentially in the coming decades. At the same time, the risk of supply disruptions is increasing against the background of rising geopolitical tensions and resource competition. Furthermore, if not managed properly, increased demand for critical raw materials could lead to negative environmental and social impacts.

Given the complexity and the transnational character of critical raw material value chains, uncoordinated national measures to ensure a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials risk undermining the functioning of the internal market. Critical raw materials are often extracted in specific countries or regions, depending on the geographical distribution of relevant reserves, transported for further processing elsewhere and then sold across the internal market for use in relevant products. At the processing stage, critical raw materials are often imported and exported several times within the internal market before use in a final application. Similarly, the end-of-life recycling of relevant products with a view to the recovery of critical raw materials can take place in a country or a region different from that where the waste is collected, and the resulting secondary raw materials are likely to be re-exported for further processing and use. Moreover, critical raw materials are needed at the beginning of many industrial value chains and are often indispensable inputs for a wide set of strategic sectors including renewable energy, the digital industry, and the aerospace and defence sectors. They therefore play an essential role in underpinning economic activities in the internal market, and supply disruptions could have a significant cross-border impact between Member States.

Against this background, uncoordinated actions by Member States risk distorting competition and fragmenting the internal market, for example by imposing diverging regulation on market operators, providing different levels of access to supply risk monitoring, providing different levels of support for national projects, or creating obstacles to cross-border trade between Member States in critical raw materials or related goods thus creating obstacles to the proper functioning of the internal market. Moreover, individual actions of Member States could be insufficient to effectively prevent supply disruptions of critical raw materials from taking place or could be less efficient in achieving that...