The European Commission has selected 46 new “Strategic Projects” across 16 EU countries to increase the bloc’s supply of critical raw materials used in technologies such as batteries, defence equipment and permanent magnets.
The projects are spread across Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden, and were chosen from 102 applications received in a call that closed earlier this year, the Commission informed on Friday.
They cover different parts of the supply chain — eight extraction projects, 11 processing projects and 19 recycling projects — along with eight “integrated” projects combining stages such as extraction and processing or processing and recycling.
The projects cover 15 of the 17 strategic raw materials listed under the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act, a law that entered into force on 23 May 2024.
Batteries, magnets, defence and aerospace
The Commission said the selected projects include seven focused on lithium, 12 on nickel, 10 on cobalt, five on manganese and four on graphite, all materials used in battery production.
Two magnesium projects and three tungsten projects were also selected, with the Commission linking those materials to defence and aerospace supply chains.
Four projects focus on rare earth elements — a group of metals used to make permanent magnets, which are found in products including electric motors and wind turbines.
The Commission said the 46 newly selected projects, combined with 47 EU-based Strategic Projects and 13 outside the EU selected in 2025, could meet the EU’s 2030 extraction benchmarks for lithium, nickel, rare earth elements, magnesium and tungsten, and its processing benchmarks for lithium and rare earth elements.
They could also meet the EU’s recycling benchmarks for lithium, cobalt and rare earth elements, while covering 89% of the bloc’s processing benchmark for cobalt.
The Critical Raw Materials Act sets targets for 2030 so that EU capacity can meet at least 10% of annual EU consumption through extraction, 40% through processing and 25% through recycling of “strategic raw materials.”
On the first list of Strategic Projects selected in 2025, 25 have completed an environmental impact assessment and 17 have obtained a construction permit.
