The Role of the European Metals Industry in the Clean Industrial Deal: Reconciling Mineral Sovereignty and the Ecological Transition

The future of Europe will be built on metals. This is not a fancy statement of intent, it is an estimation of the most likely outcome of the twin transitions that we are currently going through – in digitalisation and energy. The past and the present belong to the era of fossil fuels: our economies, our societies, and our daily lives depend on access to fossil fuels to allow us to work, sleep, eat and have fun! This is changing, faster than most people realise. Renewable energy, high speed internet, artificial intelligence and electric transport all require metals. No metals = no clean, digital future. That is as close to a fact as you can state about a speculated future!

This means Europe needs to get its policies in order, to ensure that we have access to the raw materials that we will need to make the metal based transitions happen, and not simply outsource full responsibility for our own economic security to third countries.

We must learn the lessons of the past – the war in Ukraine should be the catalyst for not just de-fossilising our economies, but to also refrain from putting all our economic eggs in one basket.

We must never rely on one country for our energy security, as we did with Russia for decades, only for them to bite us bitterly in the end.

If we don’t heed the warnings of the past we will see our metals based economy of the future being organised and controlled in a large part by China. China is the country with the highest production of solar energy materials, they are increasingly dominating in wind energy, they have the battery market under control and are starting to make in roads to heat pumps, electrolysers and electric vehicles.

If we make a transition from fossil fuels to an economy and society based on dependence on China we will have failed.

This is where European metals come in – we have a robust non-ferrous metals sector in Europe. However, every year smelters of aluminium, zinc, silicon and others close. This is a catastrophe and the opposite of what is needed to own our future. The European Commission identified this and in 2023 brought forward the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) and almost all the metals we represent in Eurometaux are included as CRMs in the CRMA. 

This is good news as it means that we in Europe understand that we need to develop our production and processing of the metals we need for our clean and digital future here in Europe. The CRMA sets targets that imply we would need at least 10 new mines, 15 new smelters and 15 new recycling plants in Europe by 2030 according to Eurometaux, otherwise we will miss this objective (and all the negative implications that has for our dependency). So, here is the rub – we are losing capacity in metal production at exactly the time it should be ramping up.

The answer to this has been to see the start of 2025 being crammed full of competitiveness related initiatives from the Ursula Von Der Leyen II Commission.

We had a Competitiveness Compass in January 2025 – with little details but good sounding intentions. In February we saw the launch of the Clean Industrial Deal – a focus on competitiveness but a continued push for decarbonisation at its heart. The so called omnibus package has been the first competitiveness element that has been rolled out in legislative terms – reducing the burden of reporting on companies. We welcome this but this alone does not drive competitiveness.

More action is needed on energy prices – the Affordable Energy Action Plan also of February 2025, gave some good new ideas: we welcome the fact that the EIB will be able to underwrite Power Purchasing Agreements (PPAs) for Energy Intensive Industries (EIIs), but this alone does not go far enough.

The answer for solid support for a competitive metals industry in Europe is a short to mid term clarification on the roll of state aid. Here we have the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Guidelines (CISAF), unfortunately there is a risk that these Guidelines will link access to state aid to a plants ability to respond to price signals. All well and good if possible – but metals are must run producers. Once the process is started it cant be stopped! So how can we possibly jump through a hoop that does not take account of the laws of physics?

Finally I will recall the Steel and Metals Action Plan, which arrived in March 2025. This was a great chance to set out how the metals sector would deliver its role in the twin transitions. Instead it was limited to steel, aluminium, copper and nickel. Missing many metals that are fundamental for the energy transition – like lithium, zinc or cobalt. This narrow lense does not help plan for the future of the sector as a whole, cherry picking some and ignoring others. We will need all metals for our future – lets hope we see more action to support our sector before its too late.