Greater autonomy regarding critical raw materials is crucial

Our FPS is deploying its assets to implement the EU's Critical Raw Materials Act in Belgium. On 23 April 2025, it brought together all stakeholders to consider how our country can reduce its dependency on critical raw materials from abroad.

Belgium and the EU are on the verge of a major green and digital transition. To bring about a shift towards a carbon-free society, we intend to invest heavily in renewable energy, while simultaneously endeavouring to introduce far-reaching digital solutions.
 

An unstable geopolitical context

But to make that happen, we need raw materials. For example, the so-called rare earths – a group of hard-to-mine chemical elements – are key components of the magnets used in wind turbines. Lithium, cobalt and nickel, in turn, are indispensable in order to produce the batteries we intend to use to provide temporary storage for our electricity.

Chips, which are all around us in electrical appliances, such as computers, washing machines, cars and smartphones, and microchips, such as the ones in your payment cards, contain large amounts of silicon.

We are therefore predicting a significant increase in demand for those raw materials – even though the EU itself is notoriously lacking in those materials. What is more, we are living in a very volatile global geopolitical context. The balance of power in the world is in a continual state of flux. The coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine have also taught us that depending too heavily on a limited number of suppliers is not a good idea.
 

Critical raw materials

This was what led the EU to come up with the term ‘critical raw materials’. These are raw materials that are much needed to supply industries or technologies of great economic importance to the EU – such as the green and digital transition, as well as defence and space travel.

They are also subject to supply risks. After all, if we depend too much on a limited number of suppliers, we run the risk that those suppliers will stop supplying if some sort of dispute ever occurs. In a scenario such as that, our green and digital transitions would be severely affected.

For example, 100% (!) of the rare earths used in magnets for wind turbines are refined in China. Türkiye supplies 98% of all borates in the EU and 97% of all magnesium in the EU comes from China. Of all the world's cobalt, which is used in batteries, 63% is mined in DR Congo and 60% is refined in China.

Extracting it therefore involves more than simply breaking ground or conducting excavations. Minerals are often locked up in fairly thin deposits in rocks along with other minerals and so cannot be used immediately. The minerals in question must then be refined or purified and that requires the necessary infrastructure and know-how that in many cases are not available in the EU, but are available in countries such as China.

The Critical Raw Materials Act

In order to put an end to that perilous situation, the EU has put together a Critical Raw Materials Act (CMRA). The aim of the rules that make up the Act is to reduce our dependency on critical raw materials and to direct attention towards the value chain as a whole.

The CRMA's joint EU targets for critical raw materials by 2030 can be summarised as follows:

• At least 10% of the annual consumption in the EU should be extracted at locations inside the EU.
• At least 40% of the annual consumption in the EU should be processed inside the EU.
• At least 15% of the annual consumption in the EU should come from recycling.
• No more than 65% of annual consumption in the EU should come from the same third country, and that must be the case with regard to each critical raw material at each relevant stage of processing.
   

Our assets

The key now is for all EU Member States – including Belgium – to implement these CRMA regulations as much as possible within their own territories. After all, 2030 is already just around the corner!

Who is responsible for implementing these regulations in Belgium? Part of the responsibility rests with the FPS Economy and the regions also have their role to play. But did you know that our FPS also has a considerable amount of assets it can deploy to make this a reality?

Across our various departments, we monitor international developments, keep a close eye on aspects of trade within the EU, strive to ensure fair and transparent extraction by means of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and have access to the know-how of our Belgian development agency, Enabel.

But above all, we can benefit from an extensive network of embassies and consulates abroad. They, along with the geographical services at the Central Administration in Brussels, not only keep a finger on the pulse to identify opportunities to procure critical commodities in a variety of countries, but are able to assist Belgian companies seeking to commence business activities in a particular country.
 

Special Envoy

In order to leverage our somewhat fragmented assets more effectively, our Board of Directors appointed Ambassador Geert Muylle as ‘Special Envoy for critical raw materials and energy security’ in November 2024. Together with a team of three people, his task is to ensure that our FPS is able to play its not-to-be-underestimated role, in order to reduce our dependency on critical raw materials.

On 23 April 2025, our FPS organised a round table at Egmont Palace, in collaboration with the FPS Economy and the regions. The goal of the round-table session was to bring together all of the players currently operating in a diffused manner to point their efforts in the same direction.

In the end, about 100 people were seated around the table, including representatives of Belgium's business community, though civil society representatives were also present. After all, it possesses knowledge about ESG: Environment, Social (favourable working conditions, no child labour, etc.) and Governance (sound management), all of which are aspects that should not be overlooked! The European Commission was also present at that meeting.

Fruitful discussions

The story of critical raw materials is actually an extremely complicated affair. As a result of the fruitful discussions that took place during the round table, we are now able to report on a few points that give an idea of the direction in which we can proceed.

• Of the 34 critical raw materials identified by the EU, 15 are produced in Belgium, including by means of recycling. But recycling alone is not enough; extraction through mining is still necessary. We therefore need to diversify the sources located outside the EU from which we obtain those materials.
• Our country is good at recycling, refining and processing. Wouldn't it therefore be better if we focus on the things we are actually good at? In other words, does it make sense for us to start a brand new mining operation in a country such as DR Congo?
• Belgium is not yet in a position to map out the entire value chain in the case of all raw materials. Sourcing a crucial component for a wind turbine from Germany is therefore not enough if the raw materials used to produce it are refined in China. We must make certain to obtain the full facts about that. An interdisciplinary centre for minerals that includes economists and geologists could therefore be helpful. Other EU countries already have a centre of that type.
• We must take the broader context into account.  For example, investing in energy-intensive refining capacity makes little sense if our expensive electricity means that we are unable to compete with foreign countries. In any case, we also need financial management and support tools with much more clout than we have today.
• Which sector contains the most dependencies? Should certain sectors be prioritised? If so, which ones should they be? Defence? Cleantech (= clean industry)? Space travel?
• In the quest for diversification, we will need to turn our attention to mineral-rich countries in the Global South. Because the contexts are so different, the approach to be adopted has to be tailor-made for each country. In that regard, the EU needs to differentiate itself from the US and China and it can do so by paying attention to ESG, by providing training and so on. After all, the countries of the South feel the need for the environment, working conditions and good governance to be taken into consideration! What is more, they too are experiencing problems with the dominant position held by China. And while that conflicts somewhat with our desire for autonomy, we should help those countries get hold of a bigger portion of the value chain by building their own refining and processing industries, for example.
• What we need to do is coordinate companies' needs with the wishes of the government. For example, working to bring about increased activity in the Great Lakes region would make no sense if our companies have no interest in that. Effective, mutual consultation is therefore essential.
• We need to consider the role played by our development cooperation. Imagine, for a moment, that Belgian companies such as Solvay, Umicore, CMB.TECH, Fluxys or Port of Antwerp-Bruges wanted to start mining, to set up refining or processing operations or to generate green hydrogen in a country in the Global South. Our development cooperation via Enabel or BIO would then be able to help with training or with the expansion of a competent ministry with responsibility for mines. Opportunities of that type actually exist in Namibia (green hydrogen), Egypt, Mauritania and Morocco.
• The FPS Foreign Affairs can also deploy its convening power, that is, its capacity to bring diverse parties together, to a much greater extent than it is currently doing. A Belgian company with 100 or so employees may well be brilliant at what it does, but it will not find it easy to gain access to companies in South Korea, for example. Our embassy, on the other hand, can do just that, such as by hosting a business lunch in the presence of the Special Envoy. Our embassies also help companies looking for opportunities during the early stages of market exploration.
• Finally, we should not underestimate the strategic importance of scrap. This consists of the electrical appliances, metals and so on that each of us takes to the recycling centre. Scrap is, in fact, a raw material and therefore represents an ‘urban mine‘, though at the moment, it is still too widely regarded as waste. We must do everything to ensure that the maximum amount of ‘our’ scrap stays right here AND is recycled.

In short, the fruitful discussions yielded many ideas that are going to be developed further. In any case, our FPS is eager to continue along this path and continue deploying its various assets to help Belgium and the EU achieve greater autonomy with regard to critical raw materials.