Brussels, 3 June 2024
Most of the world’s cobalt, a strategic raw material for the EU, is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It is then shipped to China for processing before being used, for instance, in batteries and electric vehicles (EVs).
This creates inefficiencies, extra emissions and, above all, crucial critical raw material and green sector dependencies on China. The DRC wants to move up the battery supply chain.
A 2021 Bloomberg study shows that building a Congolese processing plant to produce lithium-ion battery precursors would be vastly cheaper than constructing one in the US, China or Europe. A Global Gateway partnership framework with the DRC is in place to help develop its critical raw material value chains.
Could EU partners reduce critical raw material and green transition dependencies on China by building a Global Gateway cobalt processing plant in the DRC?