Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety Ordinary meeting
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ENVI European Parliament
Follow its sittings
Hildegard Bentele
Thank you very much. Just to outline, we have the Critical Raw Materials Act. It's there. We address our dependencies. The act entered into force only two years ago, and we are now doing a targeted revision.
So we are not the problem about our dependencies and our supply chains has been addressed two years ago. We are now doing the commission proposal, it is a very targeted revision. And I would ask you also to keep it as a very targeted revision, and also to keep the scope of our competence in the NV Committee. As EPP, we welcome the proposal of the Commission and also the switch of reporting obligations from member states to the Commission, because they have not been fulfilled. I think we can, this will make the CRM Act much more effective without introducing unnecessary burdens for companies.
What we would like to address, and we do this in a recycle, is the need for specific recycling targets in order to make it really viable for the different materials. Because currently, we have a general recycling target of about 25%, which was a placeholder. But we have to be more specific, and this is what we would like to address in a recycle that the Commission comes up with at the end of the year, also with the Circular Economy Act, that we address this issue. This is why we have put an amendment forward in this regard. But in general, we would like to argue to keep the legislation lean and not interfere too much.
Marie-Luce Brasier-Clain
Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you to the rapporteur for the work he has done. We welcome and support that work. Indeed, the commission, sorry, the NV Committee's position is meant to clarify rules, simplify rules for recycling and the secondary market for critical raw materials. But this approach, at the same time, is imposing on businesses too much red tape, obligatory cartography of the supply chain.
This form of mapping is literally impossible because of the impossibility of accessing data from their suppliers and the content of preconsumer waste streams. There's a diversification of supply chains. But what are you meant to do if you're obliged to do that and alternatives don't exist? Obligation to provide information to the public on separate information on waste streams, pre-consumer and post-consumer waste streams as well. All of that constitutes a considerable burden, which is wasteful.
In general, the commission should restrict itself to providing guidelines and having an advisory role. And finally, when we're talking about identifying the big companies operating in the EU using strategic primary raw materials. We think it's the member states and not the Commission who should be the competent body. And this should not flow to dual-use or military technologies. We should be guided by the will to ensure proportionality in measures adopted, reducing administrative burden and protecting commercially sensitive information.
Thank you.
Maria Ohisalo
Dear chair, dear colleagues, commission, I'm speaking on behalf of the Green Shadow Masjidlind Baye today. First of all, I would like to thank the commission for its targeted amendment proposal of the critical raw materials act. The Greens/EFA has drafted several amendments that insist on increasing the use of secondary raw materials, reducing demand, and improving resource efficiency throughout the text. The EU can be resilient only if we develop a circular economy of critical raw materials. For the Green CFA Group, there are three additional priorities.
First of all, clarifying what the preconsumer waste is about. We welcome the S and D proposal to have a definition that mirrors the definition in the battery regulation, ensuring regulatory coherence. And secondly, pre-consumer and post-consumer waste should be communicated separately. And we need to know whether the waste was produced inside or outside the EU. It is essential to track the recycled content of critical raw materials in the EU, in line with the latest recommendations of the European Court of Auditors.
In that respect, we also want the commission to gather more data on how strategic projects contribute to the EU's objectives, and to provide better indications on the mitigation measures foreseen for companies. And thirdly, finally, important imported products should be in the scope of the union's recycled content requirements, only if it can be verified that those imported products include certain percentages of recycled content. Otherwise, the intended environmental and supply resilience benefits will not be achieved, leaving the door open for greenwashing. Thank you.
Li Andersson
Thank you very much, Chair. We, of course, all know the high strategic importance of critical raw materials and, as was already mentioned, also the problems that are connected with high dependency on third parties for many important resources that are essential for the green transition, technological sovereignty, and critical infrastructure. So a clear view of these dependencies and a decisive role for the public sector in mapping, trading, and keeping supply chains rolling is essential. I think proposals to strengthen the circularity framework and increase recovery and reuse of critical raw materials are important, as well as increased obligations for large companies to diversify through critical raw material supply chains. But that being said, we think that we also must be able to better guarantee labor and environmental standards, as well as the involvement and guidance of local communities.
There has already been quite some examples of problematic implementation of the Critical Raw Materials Act, notably the ones that we refer to in our amendments from Portugal, Sweden, and Finland. In Finland, for example, the Sakatti mine, which has been designated a strategic project under the act, would be established in an area that is protected both through the Natura 2000 program based on several EU environmental directives and also on the national nature conservation program. This is, of course, unacceptable. So we want the commission to publish guidelines on the implementation that guarantee the respect with regards to these three aspects: social and labor rights, environmental standards, and respect and involvement for local communities. And we also think that an assessment of the supply chain's compliance with European and international environmental and labor rights rules should be added as one part of the obligations of the large companies identified.
Thank you.
Jadwiga Wiśniewska
Thank you, Chair. I think that the revision proposed by the commission is not sufficient. And it's only an alibi showing that the EU institutions are doing something. However, the proposals of changes do not tackle the key issues, like for example, the protection of the sector of critical raw materials. Like, for example, J.
S. W. Cox is badly managed and is in a dramatic financial situation because of the ETS costs. And also, the European market is flooded by cheap cuts from Indonesia and other third countries. So I would like to appeal to the commission that the Cox producers should be excluded from the costs of ETS.
Also, I would like to exclude the coking coal mines from the methane regulation. Please be rational in your revision of raw materials, critical raw materials regulation. Please be very comprehensive in that revision.
Emma Fourreau
Make extractivism great again. New
commission credo. A step back for the EU with the opening of new mines, total overhauling of which way we should go. So, how do we get out of this? You want mines, yes, but not anywhere. We are applying a neocolonial approach in Finland, in the North of Sweden, to Sami land without consulting the people concerned.
And the Sami people are against the mining projects under the CRM. And in fact, there's been an accusation that the EU is violating human rights and is looting the territories of an indigenous people. We therefore ask for a review of all mining projects so as to protect lands already subject to climate change, but no response from the Commission. Now we have a copper mine as well, which is supported by the EU. This gets too fast.
And there's going to be wastewater released. Commission has no scruples in defending this outside of our continent. Hypocrisy. So you are, in fact, imposing your extractivist obsession at the cost of peoples and ecosystems. Please give up on such projects.
Keep it in the ground.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Merci. So we leave the floor to the commission for their comments. Is Madeline Ivanica deputy head of unit of Digi Grow?
Madalina Ivanica
Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. The commission proposal is to provide targeted amendments to the Critical Raw Materials Act, and this is what we have taken as a commitment as part of the resource review action plan.
And we've done that because we do have the Critical Raw Materials Act, and we would like to accelerate what we have set ourselves as goals under this legal framework. The Critical Raw Materials Act is telling us to strengthen the domestic capacities in the EU on critical raw materials along the value chain. We also want to create a strong secondary raw materials market in the EU, and we also want to diversify and reduce our dependencies on single suppliers. So that we have as our goals, and that's why we needed to come back with Resource EU to have targeted, very targeted amendments to a few of the articles that will allow us to go further and accelerate what we have started already doing. And besides that, we also had to have a response to the trade measures adopted by China last year, so in 2024, showing that we have dependencies, strong dependencies, and we also have vulnerabilities.
With our amendments, we want to ensure that we do prepare the European Union and our companies to face the new disruptions that could come in their supply chains. Now the amendments that we put forward target some of the elements and are twofold. The first one is to streamline and strengthen the obligations on large companies that are using strategic raw materials to produce products. The idea is to push these companies to be better prepared and aware of their full supply chains in order to prevent disruptions in the future, and to take risk mitigation measures. Second, we want to support the emergence of a secondary market for permanent magnets as a tool to precisely boost the diversification when it comes to rare earth elements.
So, let me now take our proposals one by one. When it comes to the number of calls for strategic projects that we prepared, this should remain flexible. The current implementation, so over the last two years, where we had two calls for applications for strategic projects, shows us that the companies need certainty when it comes to their planning, but also that the current procedure to evaluate the applications, and we received many of them with our two calls, takes on average nine months. So this means that in one year, we can have up to four calls maximum per year. So that's why we are proposing to include up to four per year.
When it comes to the identification of large companies, this is essential for knowing which companies are actually operating in the EU. And bringing this identification at the EU level means that we will avoid duplication of work, so for the member states that currently, under the Critical Raw Materials Act, are supposed to identify the large companies. And we also ensure simplification, because these companies obviously operate in more than one member state. The proposal, it is now with the CRMA, specifies that the companies that manufacture products using strategic raw material need to already do a risk assessment. It's a report that they need to present to the board.
But now we like this information to be shared so that we can also see that they have a full assessment of their full value chain, and that they also take measures, risk mitigation measures, to ensure that future disruptions are avoided. Companies, that's so, we are proposing this amendment because we've seen with the last year situation with the export restriction from China that the companies sometimes are not aware of the full supply chains and that the risk mitigation measures that they should take, precisely to diversify their supply, are not yet taken into consideration. On the secondary content of permanent magnets in products, we support the uptake of secondary materials. As with the Critical Raw Materials Act, we want to create demand for secondary raw materials, and we want to support the building and strengthening of new recycling capacities. When it comes to the rare earths and the permanent magnets, obviously, we have strong dependencies, and we are aware of that.
And that's why we are proposing one of the amendments that we are proposing is actually to increase the number of products that contain permanent magnets that will need to have a label indicating the fact of the presence of the permanent magnets in their composition, so that we are able to recover and recycle afterwards the rare earth's content. We want to do all this, obviously, in a feasible way for companies, and that's why we also propose and support pre-consumer waste to be added to the post-consumer waste. And that's because this will allow us to capture the midstream and also upstream flows, and not only the manufacturing stage. It's important also to mention that the objective of supporting the recycling of end-of-life products remains unchanged. And on this, we stand ready to provide technical support if need be.
Thank you.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Thank you. Now we leave the floor again to the rapporteur, mister Azuba.
Jacek Ozdoba
Thank you.
I'd like to point to, Missus Vyshniewska has said. She said that your actions are not sufficient. You know that the coking coal is on the list of critical materials. It is necessary for steel production. Of course, you are creating new laws.
However, I have the impression that your actions are not sufficient. We know that we have geopolitical problems, and all the amendments submitted should result in independence of Europe from the sources of critical materials. And I see that we have a special, a specific lobby here, and we can see it.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Table will be the vote in envy for April 27. In Italy, it has to be confirmed that it should be June 24. The next item, as you know, is postponed to a later envy meeting. We don't have any other business. The next meeting will take place on April 27 in Strasbourg and in May in Brussels.
Thank you. And the meeting is closed.
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