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During the whole week, i.e. 9-13 December, over a thousand participants from industry, administration, civil society, research and academia will come together to discuss policies and initiatives in the field of raw materials. The week’s activities are assisted by the recent Critical Raw Materials Act, CRMA, which entered into force in May 2024; the launch of the European Raw Materials Academy and the Net-Zero Industry Act from June 2024.
Raw Materials Week: background
The Raw Materials Week is taking place for the ninth time; it runs during 9-13 December as the largest policy event on raw materials in EU, which has been organised regularly by the European Commission since 2016. This time, over 1,200 participants from industry, administration, civil society, research and academia will come together to discuss policies and initiatives in the field of raw materials.
This year’s event will put a particular focus on international cooperation with partnership countries, with business sessions on investment opportunities in Canada, Greenland, Australia, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Norway, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa.
On 12 December, the Commission will also hold meetings of the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) and the MSP Forum, with its co-chairs the Republic of Korea and the United-States, to discuss raw materials projects.
More on the Week in: https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/week_en; as well as in the Commission press release in: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_6273
Critical Raw Materials Act
The week’s activities are assisted by the recent Critical Raw Materials Act, CRMA, which entered into force in May 2024. The Act ensures a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials for the European industry through strengthened domestic extraction, processing and recycling capacities, while diversifying our supplies through strategic partnerships. The CRMA contains several measures to support the raw materials value chains:- it establishes a list of critical and a list of strategic raw materials; – it designates and supports the EU-wide strategic projects that aim to extract, process, recycle or substitute strategic raw materials, SRMs; – it supports the creation of a platform to aggregate demand for SRMs and for seeking offers from suppliers to match that aggregated demand; and – it sets out measures to coordinate financial support from Member States, the European financial institutions and the private sector to de-risk strategic projects.
On Critical Raw Materials Act in: https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials/critical-raw-materials-act_en
EU Raw Materials Academy
The 2024 Raw Materials Week also marks the launch of the European Raw Materials Academy, supported with €10 million from the Single Market Program and Horizon Europe. The Academy will develop learning content and credentials to meet the skills gap along the raw materials value chain. It will support the upskilling and reskilling, by education and training providers in the EU member states, of the workforce required in the EU for, among others, exploration, extraction, processing, and recycling of raw materials.
The European Raw Materials Academy is the second EU Academy set up under the Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA), following the European Solar Academy, launched in June 2024. The deployment of the programs is done via local partners. These can be Vocational and Educational Training providers, businesses, academia or other types of trainers with whom the Academy partners-up to roll-out its programs. The project will be implemented by the European Institute for Innovation and Technology, EIT as the EU-wide innovation instrument dedicated to integrating education and skills with research and business.
On Net-Zero Industry Act in: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_2309