The EU Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) Entered Into Force
The European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Act entered into force on May 23, 2024. The regulation aims to ensure the supply of raw materials critical for the economies of member states and for the clean transition. The act focuses on sustainability and the circular economy. Jonna Tirroniemi, a specialist from the Geological Survey of Finland, summarized the main points of the act.
The goal of the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) is to strengthen all phases of the critical raw materials value chains within the European Union. Measures include diversifying imports, reducing strategic dependencies, improving monitoring of supply risks, and enhancing the sustainability and circularity of materials. The regulation is influenced by the EU’s Green Deal, which guides the EU towards climate neutrality.
The European Union has identified critical raw materials that are of high economic importance to Europe and carry a high risk of supply disruption. The regulation names a total of 34 critical raw materials, of which 17 are also strategic. Strategic raw materials are essential for the green transition, digitalization, and defense industry needs.
Circular economy requirements set the bar high
The regulation sets ambitious targets for strategic raw materials consumed annually within the EU by 2030. These include: 10% of the materials should be mined within the EU, 40% should be processed within the EU, 25% should come from recycled materials, No more than 65% of the annual requirement for each strategic raw material at any stage of processing should come from a single non-EU country.
Member states must propose measures within two years of the regulation’s entry into force to encourage industry players to improve resource efficiency in critical raw materials. The regulation lists measures such as increasing the collection of used materials, sorting, reuse, substitutability, and repair obligations to old products. Research in the sector is supported. Companies are required to list generated waste and prepare waste management plans.
Potential old extractive waste sites (secondary raw materials) for critical raw materials must be identified, studied, and their data collected into a dedicated database.
Several articles in the regulation are dedicated to permanent magnets, outlining requirements for declaring the raw material content of devices containing these magnets. It also sets standards for the quantity, placement, and removal of permanent magnets from various devices to facilitate their reuse. In 2020, less than 1% of permanent magnets were recycled. Situation is the similar with many of the listed CRM, highlighting the challenge of meeting the 25% recycling target.
National exploration programmes and unified classification
The regulation sets clear deadlines for the permitting processes of EU’s mining and processing projects, allows the commission and member states to highlight projects as strategic, and accelerate permitting processes. The regulation requires supply chain risk assessments, national exploration programmes, and ensures the availability of critical and strategic raw materials within the EU. Cooperation between member states and third countries must also be strengthened.
To ensure the comparability of mineral resources, each member state should classify its total mineral resources according to the United Nations Framework Classification for Resources (UNFC) system. Finland has already done this for primary mineral resources.
EU countries now use over 20% of the world’s metals but produce only a few percent
The regulation’s goals are ambitious, given that the EU currently consumes over 20% of the world’s metals but produces only a small fraction. The regulation now calls for significant increases in the production, processing, and recycling of for ex. rare earth elements, lithium, cobalt, aluminum, and copper.
Meeting these goals is challenging, as it currently takes an average of 17 years to get a new metal-producing mine operational within the EU. The ability to meet the targets depends on how many mining and processing projects can achieve strategic project status, receive faster permit processing, and start operations by the end of the decade. This naturally applies only to projects that are already well advanced. A completely different question is the operational capability of the mineral exploration sector to continue develop early-stage prospecting, so that the European mining and processing industry would remain on a stable foundation in the future.
Many of the raw materials in question have not traditionally been explored, extracted, refined, or recycled within the EU. The demand for critical raw materials is expected to surge in the near future due to clean transition goals.
For example, lithium demand is projected to grow over 40-times by 2040 compared to 2020 levels. Currently, there are no operational lithium mines, refineries, or recycling plants in Europe.
Nordic countries as pioneers
The mining industry and related education as well as expertise have long traditions in the Nordic countries, especially in Sweden, Finland, and Norway, where the mining industry extends hundreds of years back. Also, due to the geological features of these regions, there is a high prospectivity potential for critical raw materials.
Finland is currently the only producer of cobalt and platinum group metals in Europe (Talvivaara and Kevitsa), and about 10% of the world’s cobalt is refined in Finland. In Terrafame in Sotkamo (Talvivaara), battery chemicals are produced in their own production facility, and there are plans for Europe’s first lithium-producing mine and battery-grade lithium hydroxide refining plant to open in Kaustinen.
Significant rare earth occurrences can be found in the Nordic countries, such as Greenland (Kvanefjeld), Norway (Fen), Sweden (Norra Kärr, Per Geijer), and Finland (Sokli), but these are not yet in production. Norway mines significant amounts of titanium (Tellnes) and graphite (Trælen) with hundreds of years of experience. However, Norway is not a member of the European Union. In addition to these, Finland and Sweden also have copper (Kevitsa, Aitik, Garpenberg) and nickel (Talvivaara) producing mines and refineries (Rönnskär, Harjavalta).
Despite the production and processing capacity in the Nordic countries, according to some estimates, EU will need up to 10 new metal mines, 15 new refineries, and 15 recycling plants by 2030 to achieve the set goals. For rare earth metals, Europe’s needs may be met by just one REE-producing mine, but the situation is different for copper, lithium, and nickel, and the required metal quantities are much larger.
Geological Survey of Finland supports the act in many projects
Geological Survey of Finland has several projects that identify and study potential old extractive waste sites (secondary raw materials) of critical raw materials and develops a dedicated database for the collected data in several projects. GTK is leading a project “Nordic Sustainable Minerals”, that for example develops and designs a joint database for the Nordic countries. Work for the database is done also in FuTuRam project.
Clean Energy System Transition (REPower-CEST) project supports the national obligations under the EU CRM Act. The project, for example, studies the potential of critical raw materials in mining waste facilities and formulates the national exploration concept.
The presence of EU’s strategic raw materials, especially rare earth elements (REE), VMS mineralisations (incl. for example copper) and lithium are studied in Strategic Mineral Resources in selected research areas in Finland.
Also circular economy is on the table in many projects as well as in GTK Mintec, mineral processing pilot plant and research laboratories in Outokumpu.
Smart field-testing platform and concept improves management of the long-term behaviour of extractive waste and its reuse.
GTK is taking part in creating the minerals strategy for Finland, that is led by the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Further information
Critical Raw Materials Act in Official Journal of the European Union
Jonna Tirroniemi, Specialist
Geological Survey of Finland GTK
jonna.tirroniemi@gtk.fi
tel. +358 29 503 0092
Asko Käpyaho, Head of Unit, Mineral Economy Solutions
Geological Survey of Finland GTK
asko.kapyaho@gtk.fi
tel. +358 29 503 2327
