The European Union announced a new plan on Wednesday to secure critical mineral supplies as countries grow increasingly concerned over China’s market stranglehold and its willingness to weaponize it.
Both the EU and US have found themselves vulnerable to Beijing’s leverage over critical minerals, essential for some semiconductors, batteries, and weapons, and while that risk pushed Washington to sign a string of bilateral deals with mineral-rich nations, Brussels has lagged behind. The bloc’s new €3 billion strategy aims to counter that by bankrolling mining, refining, and recycling projects of the vital minerals and metals inside Europe and abroad, and create a European Critical Raw Materials Center to oversee it all.
