The EU aims to meet a significant proportion of its own critical raw materials needs by 2030. Europe.Table has now received a leaked draft of the Critical Raw Materials Act. Among other things, it states that not more than 70 percent of a strategic raw material should be sourced from a single third country each year starting in 2030. And there are many other plans, report Leonie Düngefeld, Till Hoppe, and Charlotte Wirth.
Is the EU backing away from uniform pricing for electricity? A first draft of the electricity market reform, exclusively available to Table.Media, does not envisage this. Instead of a change in the system, the paper mainly envisages minor changes, for example, for SMEs. Some would have liked to see much more concerning the social component, analyzes Manuel Berkel.
Elsewhere, there was indeed a novelty yesterday. One day before today’s International Women’s Day, the EU put individuals and groups on its sanctions list for the first time that it holds responsible for sexual violence and other violations of women’s rights. Read more about who is affected in our news section.
By 2030, supply chain capacity for strategically important raw materials within the EU is to be significantly increased – according to the EU Commission’s draft Critical Raw Materials Act, which it plans to publish next week. A leak emerged yesterday, that was first reported by the Financial Times and is available to Europe.Table. You can read it here.
The Commission’s targets: in 2030, 10 percent of the EU’s requirements are to be covered by its own mining operations, 40 percent by local processing, and 15 percent by EU recycling capacities. In addition, the EU is to obtain not more than 70 percent of its annual requirements for a strategic raw material from a single third country by 2030. This is intended to reduce the very high level of unilateral dependency, especially on China.
From mining through refining and processing to recycling, the local value chain is to be strengthened using strategic projects. For this, each member state is to launch its own exploration program and provide information on the deposits of critical raw materials.
The groundbreaking aspect of the proposal: the projects designated as strategic are to be treated with the highest priority and speed by authorities, for which the Commission also quotes concrete figures: according to the proposal, approval procedures for new mining projects may take no longer than two years, while procedures for further processing or recycling may take no longer than one year – an ambitious target given current timeframes of ten to fifteen years.
To this end, the environmental impact assessment is to be shortened: the competent authority is to assess what scope and level of detail the assessment should have within one month. The time frame for the public consultation is to be no longer than 90 days.
These timeframes can be problematic, says Henrike Hahn, who will be the Greens’ rapporteur on the Industry Committee. “Mining in Europe should be a well-coordinated, verifiable process of a balanced policy to ensure the strategic autonomy and competitiveness of a green European industry,” she says. “Mining in Europe should meet the highest possible, not just ‘high’ as the Commission implies, environmental and social standards.” She adds that reducing complexity and increasing efficiency in mining projects should not detract from this.
The Commission keeps its promise to devote a chapter to the areas of sustainability and the circular economy – even if it does not name any further concrete target values. It provides that the member states
In the future, anyone who brings products to market that contain permanent magnets will have to provide information about the number, type, and chemical composition of the magnets in the product. These must also be replaceable so that the raw materials can be reused. The Commission intends to present a delegated act with more specific guidelines on the individual components of the magnets (such as cobalt or neodymium).
The Commission also plans to recognize certification systems of governments and organizations for the sustainability of critical raw materials and to create a register of these systems. It also wants to use delegated acts to establish rules for calculating the environmental footprint of certain raw materials, which should then simplify purchasing decisions. For this, an impact assessment is to be prepared first.
The Commission intends to reduce supply risks for critical raw materials with the support of national authorities.
In its proposal, the Commission distinguishes between strategic and critical raw minerals. The former are to be identified based on their relevance for green and digital transformation as well as for defense and space.
The classification into critical raw materials is based on economic relevance and supply risk (threshold of 2.8 and 1, respectively). In the annexes, the Commission proposes concrete calculation formulas.
The list of strategic and critical raw minerals is to be revised at least every four years using delegated acts. The previous list of critical raw materials will be revised every three years.
The Commission is setting up the Raw Materials Board for the monitoring and coordination of strategic raw materials projects. It is composed of one representative from each EU member state and one representative of the EU Commission and is to advise the Commission and the EU27 to ensure the security of the supply of critical raw minerals. The Board is to form at least four subgroups:
Representatives of the European Parliament may attend the meetings as observers.
Hildegard Bentele (EPP) finds in the draft many aspects from the Parliament’s own-initiative report of 2021, for which she was a rapporteur. She said the proposal is a “go-ahead” for the stakeholders involved. “In particular, the concrete targets for in-house production or further processing, the launching of strategic projects, and the shortening of approval procedures could soon lead to a reduction in our dependencies,” she said. “I will campaign for a quick parliamentary discussion.” With Till Hoppe and Charlotte Wirth
The Commission is not aiming for a far-reaching reform of the electricity market, as demanded by Spain and France. According to a draft published yesterday and available to Table.Media, there are no plans to abandon uniform pricing. The most expensive generation technology will set the price for the entire electricity trade.
As announced in earlier concept papers and the consultation, however, there are to be minor adjustments for limiting the influence of expensive gas-fired power plants on pricing.
With their low generation costs, renewables lower the price of electricity. The draft includes measures to facilitate investment in renewables on the one hand and to increase the absorption capacity of the electricity system for renewables on the other.
As a market-based instrument for investments, the Commission wants to strengthen long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs). To this end, member states are to reduce financial risks for buyers, for example, through state guarantees. So far, such contracts are mainly requested by large energy-intensive companies. If investors in renewables are publicly subsidized, the Commission also wants to relax the rules for tenders so that some of the electricity can be sold directly via PPAs.
Regarding public subsidies, double-sided Contracts for Difference (CfD) are to become the rule for most renewable technologies. They enable states to permanently skim excess revenues in times of skyrocketing electricity prices. According to the draft, this should also apply to investments in new nuclear power plants.
Michael Bloss, a member of the Green Party, sees this as a great gift to France: “Nuclear energy is being placed in the nest of renewables as a cuckoo’s egg, and it is receiving massive promises of subsidies.” He says nuclear energy is not compatible with a flexible electricity system.
Bloss is to negotiate the reform for the Greens in parliament. He also takes issue with the CfD requirement for publicly supported renewables. With its proposal, the Commission banned feed-in remuneration, putting renewables on a leash, Bloss said.
However, investments in solutions that make the power system more flexible and thus increase the absorption capacity for the fluctuation-prone renewables are to be facilitated. The shifting of demand (load management) and the construction of storage facilities are the main options.
To this end, the member states are to determine the need and set quantitative targets for load management and storage, which remain voluntary. The EU member states will also be given explicit approval for new funding options.
For households, the draft is likely to bring few direct improvements. The changes to energy supply contracts that the Commission is seeking throughout the EU are already applicable law in Germany. Unlike in other countries, Germany already has a substitute supplier who steps in if a supplier goes bankrupt.
The Commission wants to introduce an obligation for suppliers to offer long-term supply contracts with price guarantees. However, the term of one year – still in brackets – would fall short of the German regulation, where consumer contracts with a term of two years are also possible.
The draft provides a right to share energy for households and SMEs, although similar rules already exist in the Electricity Market Directive and the Renewable Energy Directive.
“The social component of the proposal is thin,” finds Green MEP Bloss, “there will be neither targeted preferential tariffs nor a ban on electricity blackouts for poor households.”
In crises, however, the Commission wants to allow states to set regulated prices for 80 percent of consumption. For SMEs, the comparative value refers to individual consumption in the past; for households, it refers to the median value of all consumers.
Valérie Masson-Delmotte is difficult to reach. Because the French Paleoclimatologist and Research Director at the national research center for nuclear energy “Commissariat for Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies” (CEA) is inundated with requests. As a specialist in “past climate change,” she has already won numerous awards and was ranked by Time magazine as one of the hundred most influential people of 2022.
Since her appointment as Co-Chair of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2015, the 50-year-old scientist has been stringing together television and radio broadcasts, training sessions for politicians and civil servants, appearances at festivals, long threads on Twitter, and writing and proofreading reports and articles.
Masson-Delmotte would not have been able to do most of this if she had joined Macron’s government. The offer was on the table after Macron’s re-election in the spring of 2022, but the climate scientist turned it down. Yet she is no stranger to political engagement. Between 2008 and 2014, Masson-Delmotte was a local councilor (independent) in her small municipality of Villejust (Essonne), near Paris.
In the fall of 2022, however, a few months after she declined to join the government, she accepted an invitation from the Élysée to address the French president and the entire government and brief 42 ministers and secretaries of state on climate change. A disastrous summer in France with heat waves, droughts, and fires had shaken up the government.
The climate scientist also addressed that women are underrepresented in climate science. She begins a talk at a seminar hosted by the French Association of Women Leaders in Higher Education, Research, and Innovation (AFDESRI) in late January 2023 with a tribute to a pioneering woman in climate science.
“It is extremely important to know the fundamental contribution that women scientists have long made to understanding climate change: it was a woman, the American researcher Eunice Foote, also a feminist, who was the first scientist in the 19th century to show that increases in greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere affect air temperature and climate. She is one of those scientists who have been sidelined and whose groundbreaking work is not adequately appreciated.”
For a long time, Irishman John Tyndall was considered the discoverer of the effect that carbon has on climate. It was not until 2010 that Foote’s experiments, which she had published as early as 1856 and in which she proved that carbon is a greenhouse gas, were rediscovered.
It was eight years ago that she was pressured by the French government to apply as Co-Chair of Working Group I for the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report. And she admits she has reached her breaking point. Since her appointment, her work has included overseeing the publication of a 2,400-page report and three special reports. She also helped write the synthesis report, to be unveiled on March 20.
She is also putting her finger on the pulse at the IPCC. Only about one-third of IPCC authors are women, she says. That ratio “reflects the power relations in the scientific community,” the researcher says. She hopes there will be female candidates for the IPCC chair next July. She will not run again.
Valérie Masson-Delmotte hopes to then have more time for tennis and her great passion, reading. The Frenchwoman is the mother of two grown-up daughters who are passionate about very similar topics and studied gender issues as well as biodiversity and ecology in their master’s degree. Her next big project is already just around the corner: a major European research project in Antarctica, Awaca, for which Masson-Delmotte is one of the main coordinators. So, Masson-Delmotte will not run out of work.
The EU aims to meet a significant proportion of its own critical raw materials needs by 2030. Europe.Table has now received a leaked draft of the Critical Raw Materials Act. Among other things, it states that not more than 70 percent of a strategic raw material should be sourced from a single third country each year starting in 2030. And there are many other plans, report Leonie Düngefeld, Till Hoppe, and Charlotte Wirth.
Is the EU backing away from uniform pricing for electricity? A first draft of the electricity market reform, exclusively available to Table.Media, does not envisage this. Instead of a change in the system, the paper mainly envisages minor changes, for example, for SMEs. Some would have liked to see much more concerning the social component, analyzes Manuel Berkel.
Elsewhere, there was indeed a novelty yesterday. One day before today’s International Women’s Day, the EU put individuals and groups on its sanctions list for the first time that it holds responsible for sexual violence and other violations of women’s rights. Read more about who is affected in our news section.
By 2030, supply chain capacity for strategically important raw materials within the EU is to be significantly increased – according to the EU Commission’s draft Critical Raw Materials Act, which it plans to publish next week. A leak emerged yesterday, that was first reported by the Financial Times and is available to Europe.Table. You can read it here.
The Commission’s targets: in 2030, 10 percent of the EU’s requirements are to be covered by its own mining operations, 40 percent by local processing, and 15 percent by EU recycling capacities. In addition, the EU is to obtain not more than 70 percent of its annual requirements for a strategic raw material from a single third country by 2030. This is intended to reduce the very high level of unilateral dependency, especially on China.
From mining through refining and processing to recycling, the local value chain is to be strengthened using strategic projects. For this, each member state is to launch its own exploration program and provide information on the deposits of critical raw materials.
The groundbreaking aspect of the proposal: the projects designated as strategic are to be treated with the highest priority and speed by authorities, for which the Commission also quotes concrete figures: according to the proposal, approval procedures for new mining projects may take no longer than two years, while procedures for further processing or recycling may take no longer than one year – an ambitious target given current timeframes of ten to fifteen years.
To this end, the environmental impact assessment is to be shortened: the competent authority is to assess what scope and level of detail the assessment should have within one month. The time frame for the public consultation is to be no longer than 90 days.
These timeframes can be problematic, says Henrike Hahn, who will be the Greens’ rapporteur on the Industry Committee. “Mining in Europe should be a well-coordinated, verifiable process of a balanced policy to ensure the strategic autonomy and competitiveness of a green European industry,” she says. “Mining in Europe should meet the highest possible, not just ‘high’ as the Commission implies, environmental and social standards.” She adds that reducing complexity and increasing efficiency in mining projects should not detract from this.
The Commission keeps its promise to devote a chapter to the areas of sustainability and the circular economy – even if it does not name any further concrete target values. It provides that the member states
In the future, anyone who brings products to market that contain permanent magnets will have to provide information about the number, type, and chemical composition of the magnets in the product. These must also be replaceable so that the raw materials can be reused. The Commission intends to present a delegated act with more specific guidelines on the individual components of the magnets (such as cobalt or neodymium).
The Commission also plans to recognize certification systems of governments and organizations for the sustainability of critical raw materials and to create a register of these systems. It also wants to use delegated acts to establish rules for calculating the environmental footprint of certain raw materials, which should then simplify purchasing decisions. For this, an impact assessment is to be prepared first.
The Commission intends to reduce supply risks for critical raw materials with the support of national authorities.
In its proposal, the Commission distinguishes between strategic and critical raw minerals. The former are to be identified based on their relevance for green and digital transformation as well as for defense and space.
The classification into critical raw materials is based on economic relevance and supply risk (threshold of 2.8 and 1, respectively). In the annexes, the Commission proposes concrete calculation formulas.
The list of strategic and critical raw minerals is to be revised at least every four years using delegated acts. The previous list of critical raw materials will be revised every three years.
The Commission is setting up the Raw Materials Board for the monitoring and coordination of strategic raw materials projects. It is composed of one representative from each EU member state and one representative of the EU Commission and is to advise the Commission and the EU27 to ensure the security of the supply of critical raw minerals. The Board is to form at least four subgroups:
Representatives of the European Parliament may attend the meetings as observers.
Hildegard Bentele (EPP) finds in the draft many aspects from the Parliament’s own-initiative report of 2021, for which she was a rapporteur. She said the proposal is a “go-ahead” for the stakeholders involved. “In particular, the concrete targets for in-house production or further processing, the launching of strategic projects, and the shortening of approval procedures could soon lead to a reduction in our dependencies,” she said. “I will campaign for a quick parliamentary discussion.” With Till Hoppe and Charlotte Wirth
The Commission is not aiming for a far-reaching reform of the electricity market, as demanded by Spain and France. According to a draft published yesterday and available to Table.Media, there are no plans to abandon uniform pricing. The most expensive generation technology will set the price for the entire electricity trade.
As announced in earlier concept papers and the consultation, however, there are to be minor adjustments for limiting the influence of expensive gas-fired power plants on pricing.
With their low generation costs, renewables lower the price of electricity. The draft includes measures to facilitate investment in renewables on the one hand and to increase the absorption capacity of the electricity system for renewables on the other.
As a market-based instrument for investments, the Commission wants to strengthen long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs). To this end, member states are to reduce financial risks for buyers, for example, through state guarantees. So far, such contracts are mainly requested by large energy-intensive companies. If investors in renewables are publicly subsidized, the Commission also wants to relax the rules for tenders so that some of the electricity can be sold directly via PPAs.
Regarding public subsidies, double-sided Contracts for Difference (CfD) are to become the rule for most renewable technologies. They enable states to permanently skim excess revenues in times of skyrocketing electricity prices. According to the draft, this should also apply to investments in new nuclear power plants.
Michael Bloss, a member of the Green Party, sees this as a great gift to France: “Nuclear energy is being placed in the nest of renewables as a cuckoo’s egg, and it is receiving massive promises of subsidies.” He says nuclear energy is not compatible with a flexible electricity system.
Bloss is to negotiate the reform for the Greens in parliament. He also takes issue with the CfD requirement for publicly supported renewables. With its proposal, the Commission banned feed-in remuneration, putting renewables on a leash, Bloss said.
However, investments in solutions that make the power system more flexible and thus increase the absorption capacity for the fluctuation-prone renewables are to be facilitated. The shifting of demand (load management) and the construction of storage facilities are the main options.
To this end, the member states are to determine the need and set quantitative targets for load management and storage, which remain voluntary. The EU member states will also be given explicit approval for new funding options.
For households, the draft is likely to bring few direct improvements. The changes to energy supply contracts that the Commission is seeking throughout the EU are already applicable law in Germany. Unlike in other countries, Germany already has a substitute supplier who steps in if a supplier goes bankrupt.
The Commission wants to introduce an obligation for suppliers to offer long-term supply contracts with price guarantees. However, the term of one year – still in brackets – would fall short of the German regulation, where consumer contracts with a term of two years are also possible.
The draft provides a right to share energy for households and SMEs, although similar rules already exist in the Electricity Market Directive and the Renewable Energy Directive.
“The social component of the proposal is thin,” finds Green MEP Bloss, “there will be neither targeted preferential tariffs nor a ban on electricity blackouts for poor households.”
In crises, however, the Commission wants to allow states to set regulated prices for 80 percent of consumption. For SMEs, the comparative value refers to individual consumption in the past; for households, it refers to the median value of all consumers.
Valérie Masson-Delmotte is difficult to reach. Because the French Paleoclimatologist and Research Director at the national research center for nuclear energy “Commissariat for Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies” (CEA) is inundated with requests. As a specialist in “past climate change,” she has already won numerous awards and was ranked by Time magazine as one of the hundred most influential people of 2022.
Since her appointment as Co-Chair of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2015, the 50-year-old scientist has been stringing together television and radio broadcasts, training sessions for politicians and civil servants, appearances at festivals, long threads on Twitter, and writing and proofreading reports and articles.
Masson-Delmotte would not have been able to do most of this if she had joined Macron’s government. The offer was on the table after Macron’s re-election in the spring of 2022, but the climate scientist turned it down. Yet she is no stranger to political engagement. Between 2008 and 2014, Masson-Delmotte was a local councilor (independent) in her small municipality of Villejust (Essonne), near Paris.
In the fall of 2022, however, a few months after she declined to join the government, she accepted an invitation from the Élysée to address the French president and the entire government and brief 42 ministers and secretaries of state on climate change. A disastrous summer in France with heat waves, droughts, and fires had shaken up the government.
The climate scientist also addressed that women are underrepresented in climate science. She begins a talk at a seminar hosted by the French Association of Women Leaders in Higher Education, Research, and Innovation (AFDESRI) in late January 2023 with a tribute to a pioneering woman in climate science.
“It is extremely important to know the fundamental contribution that women scientists have long made to understanding climate change: it was a woman, the American researcher Eunice Foote, also a feminist, who was the first scientist in the 19th century to show that increases in greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere affect air temperature and climate. She is one of those scientists who have been sidelined and whose groundbreaking work is not adequately appreciated.”
For a long time, Irishman John Tyndall was considered the discoverer of the effect that carbon has on climate. It was not until 2010 that Foote’s experiments, which she had published as early as 1856 and in which she proved that carbon is a greenhouse gas, were rediscovered.
It was eight years ago that she was pressured by the French government to apply as Co-Chair of Working Group I for the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report. And she admits she has reached her breaking point. Since her appointment, her work has included overseeing the publication of a 2,400-page report and three special reports. She also helped write the synthesis report, to be unveiled on March 20.
She is also putting her finger on the pulse at the IPCC. Only about one-third of IPCC authors are women, she says. That ratio “reflects the power relations in the scientific community,” the researcher says. She hopes there will be female candidates for the IPCC chair next July. She will not run again.
Valérie Masson-Delmotte hopes to then have more time for tennis and her great passion, reading. The Frenchwoman is the mother of two grown-up daughters who are passionate about very similar topics and studied gender issues as well as biodiversity and ecology in their master’s degree. Her next big project is already just around the corner: a major European research project in Antarctica, Awaca, for which Masson-Delmotte is one of the main coordinators. So, Masson-Delmotte will not run out of work.
