EU picks 46 new strategic critical mineral projects to cut China reliance

A second batch of 46 projects

The European Commission selected 46 new strategic raw material projects on Friday, giving them faster permitting and help bidding for public and private funding. The projects are spread across 16 EU member states and cover 15 of the bloc's 17 strategic raw materials, including copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, graphite, rare earths, magnesium and tungsten. The Commission expects the projects to require around €21.1 billion ($23.7 billion) in capital investment. Strategic status does not automatically bring EU money, since the Commission says it 'facilitates access' to funding and helps developers connect with lenders.

The 46 new projects are expected to require around €21.1 billion ($23.7 billion) in capital investment, mobilised from a combination of public and private sources.

Where the projects sit

Of the 46 projects, eight focus on extraction, 11 on processing and 19 on recycling, while eight are integrated projects, three linking extraction and processing and five linking processing and recycling.

By metal, the Commission counts seven lithium, 12 nickel, 10 cobalt, five manganese and four graphite projects supporting the battery value chain, two magnesium and three tungsten projects for defence and aerospace, and four rare earths projects for permanent magnets.

The Commission's statement cites 102 applications received in the call that closed earlier this year, while POLITICO reports more than 170 applications. Two of the new projects are in Spain: the ABT Abenójar Tungsten processing plant in Puertollano, which processes material from the El Moto mine selected in March 2025, and the San Rafael copper mines in Touro and O Pino in A Coruña. EL PAÍS reports that with these two, Spain has nine of the 93 projects assigned since 2025. Other notable selections include the Zinnwald Lithium project in Germany, the Skouries mine in Greece, Arctial's planned aluminium smelter in Finland and the Viscaria copper project in Sweden.

Why Brussels is moving now

Reuters reports that Beijing has increasingly used EU dependencies on critical minerals as a trade lever over the last two years. On 9 October 2025, China announced new rare earth export restrictions, and the Commission's industry chief Stéphane Séjourné framed the moment this way:

Exactly one year ago, we experienced firsthand why this matters.

The 2024 Critical Raw Materials Act sets 2030 targets for the EU to mine 10%, process 40% and recycle 25% of its annual needs. POLITICO also reports that the act limits sourcing to no more than 65% of any one material at any processing stage from a single non-EU country. Séjourné said the projects would allow the bloc to meet its extraction target for several metals:

With the projects selected in 2025 and 2026, we could now fully meet our European extraction target for lithium, nickel, rare earths, magnesium and tungsten.

He added that the projects could also meet processing targets for lithium and rare earths and recycling targets for lithium, cobalt and rare earths. POLITICO reports that China's export controls are due to expire in January.

Progress on the first list

The first list of 47 projects came in March 2025, and 13 projects in third countries were selected in June 2025. The Commission says it has mobilised more than €2 billion ($2.24 billion) in public funding for projects picked last year, but developers warned in August that more could fail without urgent funding. POLITICO reports that the majority of those first-round projects are behind schedule. The European Environmental Bureau's Diego Marin said, citing publicly available sources:

At least one in three mining and processing strategic projects is either late, stalled, at risk, or no longer exists, and only about a quarter are clearly on track.

In August, 23 first-round projects claimed some faced 'immediate jeopardy' in a letter to the Commission that POLITICO obtained, and those companies argued that new strategic projects would dilute their status. A Commission official rejected that claim, noting that some of those projects had received direct Commission funding.

What comes next

POLITICO reports that the EEB findings will be published in a report later this month. Projects selected on Friday face permitting deadlines of 27 months for mines and 15 months for processing and recycling projects. The Commission will also announce strategic projects in non-EU countries later this year. The 60 projects announced last year included 13 outside the EU, in Brazil, Greenland and Kazakhstan.