EU picks 13 new critical material projects, including in Greenland

By Julia Payne

PARIS, June 4 (Reuters) - The European Commission on Wednesday announced 13 new raw material projects outside the bloc to increase its supplies of metals and minerals essential for it to stay competitive in the energy transition as well as defence and aerospace.

The EU's announcement follows China's decision in April to impose export curbs on rare earth magnets until new licences are obtained, leaving diplomats, carmakers and other executives from Europe and elsewhere scrambling to secure meetings with Beijing officials and avert factory shutdowns.

China controls more than 90% of global processing capacity for the magnets, used in everything from vehicles and fighter jets to home appliances. Beijing is also the main supplier of many key inputs for renewable energy, especially rare earths, batteries and solar panels, a situation Brussels is keen to change.

The EU list is part of the implementation of the Critical Raw Material Act agreed in 2023 under which the bloc aims to mine 10%, process 40% and recycle 25% of its needs by 2030.

Most of the new projects will be focused on materials essential for electric vehicle batteries and battery storage including lithium, cobalt, manganese and graphite. Two projects for rare earths are located in Malawi and South Africa. Rare earths are used to produce magnets in wind turbines.

The projects are located in Britain, Canada, Greenland, Kazakhstan, Norway, Serbia, Ukraine, Zambia, Brazil and the French territory of New Caledonia.

The British project is to extract tungsten and the ones in Ukraine and Greenland will be for graphite, with the project in Greenland run by GreenRoc Strategic Materials GROC.L.

Greenland has been a point of tension between Brussels and Washington this year after U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly said he wanted to acquire the Danish overseas territory.

U.S. officials have discussed a plan to pull Greenland into America's sphere of influence with a type of agreement called COFA that the United States has used to maintain close ties with several Pacific Island nations. Under COFA, the U.S. government offers essential services and in exchange, the U.S. military operates freely while trade with the U.S. is largely duty-free.

The EU has estimated that the projects would need an overall capital investment of 5.5 billion euros ($6.27 billion) to get off the ground. They would receive coordinated financial support and buyer interest from the Commission, member states and lenders.

The new list brings the total number of strategic projects to 60. In March, the Commission announced 47 projects within the EU.