The European Raw Materials Alliance aims to build resilience and strategic autonomy for Europe's rare earth and magnet value chains. It will identify barriers, opportunities and investment possibilities in the raw materials value chain, while also addressing sustainability and social impact.
Who can join and how
The alliance is open to all relevant stakeholders, including industrial actors along the value chain, EU countries and regions, trade unions, civil society, research and technology organisations, investors and NGOs.
It will apply the principles of cooperation, inclusiveness and transparency and respect EU trade and competition rules. To join the alliance, an organisation must sign the declaration, committing it to the alliance's shared vision and to contributing to its operational work.
Read the European Raw Materials Alliance (ERMA) declaration and fill in the ERMA website form to join the alliance.
You can also watch the launch event of the alliance.
What the alliance does
The European Raw Materials Alliance aims to make Europe economically more resilient by diversifying its supply chains, creating jobs, attracting investments to the raw materials value chain, fostering innovation, training young talents and contributing to the best enabling framework for raw materials and the circular economy worldwide.
The alliance addresses the challenge of securing access to sustainable raw materials, advanced materials, and industrial processing know-how. By 2030, ERMA’s activities will increase the production of raw and advanced materials and address circular economy by boosting the recovery and recycling of critical raw materials. More specifically, the alliance will
- bolster the creation of environmentally sustainable and socially equitable innovations and infrastructure
- implement a Circular Economy of complex products like electric vehicles, clean tech, and hydrogen equipment
- support Europe’s raw materials industry capability, to extract, design, manufacture and recycle materials
- promote innovation, strategic investment, and industrial production across specific value chains
Background
The EU’s Industrial Strategy adopted on 10 March 2020 proposes to develop new industrial alliances. While all industrial alliances should take into account the raw materials dimension, there is also the need to develop a dedicated industrial alliance for specific raw materials value chains, as these face particular challenges such as highly concentrated global markets, investment and innovation barriers and the need to improve transparency and sustainability.
The Communication on Critical Raw Materials adopted on 3 September 2020 laid out current and future challenges for raw materials in Europe and announced ten actions to make Europe’s raw materials supply more resilient. One action was to “launch an industry-driven European Raw Materials Alliance in Q3 2020, initially to build resilience and strategic autonomy for the rare earths and magnets value chain, before extending to other raw material areas”.
Timeline
- 17 June 2021Raw Materials Summit: In Focus
- 18 February 2021Second ERMA cluster on critical and strategic raw materials for energy storage and conversion
- 9 December 2020First ERMA cluster on rare earth magnets and motors
- 29 September 2020Launch event of the European Raw Materials Alliance
- 3 September 2020European Raw Materials Alliance announced in the Communication on Critical Raw Materials
Related links
- ERMA website
- The European Commission’s policy on critical raw materials
- Communication on Critical Raw Materials
Contact
Policy-related questions: GROW-I1
ec [dot] europa [dot] eu (GROW-I1[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)
You may submit questions on the work and organisation of the alliance via the EIT Raw Materials contact page.