RESourceEU: securing supply, restoring competitiveness

On 3 December 2025, the European Commission adopted the RESourceEU Action Plan, an initiative designed to accelerate the European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Strategy under the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA). The plan represents a step in the right direction as Europe races to reduce its strategic dependencies on foreign suppliers, particularly China, for essential minerals like rare earths, lithium, cobalt, and copper. These materials are the backbone of clean energy technologies, digital infrastructure, defense systems, and industrial competitiveness.

With geopolitical tensions rising and global supply chains under strain, RESourceEU is a geopolitical necessity. The plan commits €3 billion in funding over the next 12 months, mobilised from EU budgets, the European Investment Bank (EIB), and programs like the Innovation Fund, Battery Booster, and Horizon Europe. Its ambition? To halve the EU’s dependence on single external suppliers by 2029 while boosting domestic recycling, mining, and strategic partnerships.

In its Opinion adopted in the June Plenary, the EESC sends a clear message that Europe’s critical raw materials strategy will only succeed if industrial competitiveness is treated as a core priority alongside resilience and sustainability.

One of the key points in the report is that strategic CRM projects in Europe cannot move forward without addressing the issue of structurally high energy prices. Many CRM activities are highly energy-intensive, and energy costs are often decisive for project viability. In this context, the Opinion stresses the importance of facilitating long-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPAs), accelerating permitting procedures and ensuring that European projects can realistically access financing and support schemes.

The report also highlights concerns regarding the current design of the Clean Industrial State Aid Framework (CISAF). Certain additionality and sourcing requirements linked to electrification support risk excluding energy-intensive industries from accessing support in practice, especially in regions where electricity systems are still transitioning. This needs to be fixed. 

Another important issue raised is the lack of support for shaping and firming/profile-matching costs under long-term PPAs. These costs remain one of the biggest barrier slowing down the deployment of industrial PPAs in Europe and need to be addressed more effectively at EU level.

On the Emissions Trading System (ETS), the significant cost burden it creates for sectors with limited technological alternatives has to be resolved. The Opinion calls for a proper assessment of the impact of ETS-related costs on the competitiveness of European CRM industries.

The Opinion also raises concerns regarding the implementation of the EU Taxonomy and the ‘do no significant harm’ (DNSH) principle. Current criteria and thresholds are in some cases not yet achievable with existing technologies and risk preventing strategic European projects from accessing finance, even when these projects perform better environmentally than competitors outside the EU (e.g. primary aluminium production is 50% less CO2 intensive compared to China).

In addition, the Opinion underlines that financial support for CRM projects remains insufficient. While the mobilisation of €3 billion is welcomed, investment needs are far greater and future funding instruments should better account for industrial resilience, security of supply and strategic autonomy objectives.

The Opinion also supports stronger action on circularity, recycling and scrap leakage. In particular, it calls for measures to ensure that valuable aluminium scrap generated in Europe contributes primarily to European recycling and manufacturing capacity, while also supporting simpler and more digitalised procedures for CRM waste circulation within the EU.

Finally, we stress that Europe must strengthen its own extraction, refining, processing and recycling capacities, while building diversified international partnerships that support resilience and reduce excessive strategic dependencies.

Konstantinos DIAMANTOUROS, EESC Employers' Group member and Rapporteur of Opinion CCMI/259 RESourceEU plan.