The week’s highlights will include the 11th annual High-Level Conference on Raw Materials taking place on Wednesday, 11 December. Stéphane Séjourné, Executive Vice-President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy will deliver the opening speech and deliver his vision for the future of the EU’s raw materials policy.
During the event, participants will discuss the implementation of the Critical Raw Materials Act.This year’s event will put a particular focus on international cooperation with partnership countries, with business sessions on investment opportunities in Canada, Greenland, Australia, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Norway, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa.
On Thursday 12 December, the Commission will also hold meetings of the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) and the MSP Forum, with its co-chairs the Republic of Korea and the United-States, to discuss raw materials projects.
Moreover, the 2024 Raw Materials Week will also mark the launch of the European Raw Materials Academy, supported with €10 million from the Single Market Programme and Horizon Europe. The Academy will develop learning content and credentials to meet the skills gap along the raw materials value chain. It will support the upskilling and reskilling, by education and training providers in EU Member States, of the workforce required in the EU for, among others, exploration, extraction, processing, and recycling of raw materials. With an expected 1,200 participants, experts in raw materials and strategic sectors like batteries, digital technologies, defence and space will exchange on how to foster domestic capacities along the value chain, finance and derisk projects, stimulate research and innovation and enhance circularity for critical raw materials.
Background
The Raw Materials Week is the largest policy event on raw materials and is organised by the European Commission since 2016. Over 1,200 participants from industry, administration, civil society, research and academia will come together to discuss policies and initiatives in the field of raw materials. This edition is the first after the entry into force of the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) in May 2024. The Act ensures a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials for the European industry through strengthened domestic extraction, processing and recycling capacities, while diversifying our supplies through strategic partnerships. The CRMA, contains several measures to support the raw materials value chains:
- it establishes a list of critical and a list of strategic raw materials;
- it designates and supports Strategic Projects that aim to extract, process, recycle or substitute strategic raw materials (SRMs);
- it supports the creation of a platform to aggregate demand for SRMs and for seeking offers from suppliers to match that aggregated demand; and
- it sets out measures to coordinate financial support from Member States, the European financial institutions and the private sector to de-risk strategic projects.
The European Raw Materials Academy is the second EU Academy set up under the Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA), following the European Solar Academy, launched in June 2024. The deployment of the programmes is done via local partners. These can be Vocational and Educational Training providers, businesses, or academia or other types of trainers with whom the Academy partners-up to roll-out its programmes. The project will be implemented by the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT). EIT is an EU innovation instrument dedicated to integrating education and skills with research and business.
More information
Quote
Critical raw materials are one of the foundations of our renewed industrial policy. They are essentials for the decarbonation of our industry. Europe must ensure a diversified and resilient supply chain. We need to reduce our dependencies with our domestic production meeting high quality standards and at the same time secure substantial contracts with like-minded partners all over the globe. Making Europe a leader of critical raw materials production, research and knowledge is an essential element of our competitiveness and our European sovereignty. The European Raw Materials Academy is at the forefront of this needed change of paradigm.
Stéphane Séjourné, Executive Vice-President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy
Source – EU Commission