The European Commission has selected 46 new Strategic Projects under the Critical Raw Materials Act, spread across 16 member states, the Commission announced Friday in Brussels. The projects are meant to expand the European Union's own capacity to mine, process and recycle materials such as lithium, nickel, cobalt and rare earths, reducing dependence on a handful of foreign suppliers.

What Happened

The selections come from the second call for applications, which drew 102 submissions. The Commission and outside experts assessed 92 applications located in the EU, across 18 member states, against criteria including security of supply, technical feasibility, environmental and social standards, and benefits beyond the host country.

The 46 winners are located in Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden. By stage of the supply chain, eight are extraction projects, 11 are processing, 19 are recycling and eight combine stages. Together they cover 15 of the 17 materials the law designates as strategic.

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The battery supply chain dominates: seven projects involve lithium, 12 nickel, 10 cobalt, five manganese and four graphite. Two magnesium and three tungsten projects serve defense and aerospace, and four rare earth projects target permanent magnets.

Executive Vice President Stéphane Séjourné said the second wave shows Europe is stepping up its efforts "like never before" to reclaim sovereignty over critical raw materials.

Why It Matters

The Critical Raw Materials Act sets 2030 targets for the EU to cover at least 10% of its annual consumption of strategic raw materials through domestic extraction, 40% through processing and 25% through recycling. Combined with the 47 EU projects and 13 projects outside the bloc selected last year, the Commission says the portfolio could fully meet the extraction benchmarks for lithium, nickel, rare earths, magnesium and tungsten, and the processing benchmarks for lithium and rare earths. It estimates coverage of 89% of the cobalt processing benchmark, 57% for tungsten and 51% for magnesium.

These materials feed electric vehicle batteries, wind turbines, defense equipment and the electric motors and cooling systems used in data centers. China dominates processing for many of them, especially rare earths, and has used export controls on critical minerals as leverage in trade disputes, which has pushed Europe and the United States to build alternative supply.

Progress So Far

Selection does not guarantee construction. Of last year's projects, 25 have completed environmental impact assessments and 17 have obtained construction permits, according to the Commission. Strategic Projects are entitled to faster permitting and help with financing under the law.

Since the RESourceEU plan was launched in December 2025, Team Europe, the EU institutions together with member states and the European Investment Bank, has mobilized more than 2 billion euros through the Innovation Fund, state aid and the bank. The Raw Materials Mechanism, which links buyers with suppliers, has produced more than 30 matches covering 10 materials.

What to Watch

The Commission plans to open a new call for Strategic Project applications toward the end of 2026. The pace of permits and financing for the 46 new projects, and whether buyer-supplier matches turn into long-term offtake contracts, will show whether the portfolio can reach the 2030 benchmarks the Commission projects.