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The trade magazine for the packaging industry

In an effort to strengthen the resilience of the European economy in the face of multiple crises, the EU Commission presented two legislative proposals on 16 March. These are intended to promote a climate-neutral economy within the EU and ensure the supply of so-called „strategic“ raw materials. The initiative has been praised by the BDE.

The BDE Federal Association of the German Waste Management, Water and Circular Economy sees the EU Commission's proposals for regulating the supply of critical raw materials as an important prerequisite for reducing dependence on raw materials from third countries. The association is particularly in favour of the planned acceleration of approval procedures for all projects relating to the processing or recycling of strategic raw materials.

With the new classification of „strategic raw materials“ within the group of critical raw materials, the Commission is making a clear and appropriate clarification in the view of the association. „The Commission's proposals provide a good basis for reducing existing dependencies on other countries for the supply of raw materials. The Commission's plans to achieve the targets by 2030 are very ambitious“ said BDE President Peter Kurth on Thursday in Berlin.

Association rates targets as ambitious

Prior to this, the European Commission had presented its proposal for a regulation establishing a framework for a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials (European Critical Raw Materials Regulation). These include rare earths, for example, which are in high demand on the global market and whose importance will continue to grow in the future.

The use of the term „strategic raw materials“ is new. These are materials that are of fundamental importance for the green transition, digitalisation and for defence and space applications. By 2030, 10 per cent of the EU's demand for strategic raw materials is to be covered by domestic mining. The BDE considers the target of increasing the EU-wide processing of strategic raw materials to 40 per cent of the annual demand for strategic raw materials within the EU by 2030 to be extremely ambitious. It is crucial and necessary for the waste management sector that from 2030, 15 per cent of the annual demand for strategic raw materials should come from secondary raw materials recycled in the EU. In order to achieve these goals, the association believes that major investments and funding from the EU and the Member States are required, but the Commission proposal does not contain any specific and binding regulations on financing the necessary projects.

The BDE takes a positive view of the requirement that national authorisation procedures for projects of this type must be completed within one year and can only be extended by just one month in exceptional cases. If the competent authority has still not issued a statement by this time, the authorisation is deemed to have been granted.

Proposal does not remain uncriticised

Criticism has come from the German Aluminium Association. They were irritated by the fact that aluminium is not listed as a strategic raw material in the proposal. AD President Rob van Gils: „We are surprised, to say the least, that the Commission has not identified aluminium as a strategic material. Without a strong, cohesive and resilient aluminium competence chain, we are only shifting the risk of strategic dependency instead of overcoming it. This will not bring us any closer to Europe's goals. The switch to battery-powered electric vehicles, the expansion of renewable energies and the grids cannot be implemented without aluminium. And we would be well advised to maintain these well-established chains of expertise in Germany and Europe.“

Sources: BDE | Aluminium Germany

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