«Reopen the mines», the agreement with France and Germany- Corriere.it

Italy, France and Germany will launch “cooperation in the sectors of extraction, processing and recycling” of critical raw materials. This was agreed by the Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, the French Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, and the German Minister of Economy Robert Habeck in a summit which took place on Monday 26 June in Berlin. “We don’t want to move from energy subordination to Russia to subordination to China,” Habeck said at a press conference. Urso went back to talking about the reopening of the mines, recalling that in Italy there are at least 16 critical raw materials out of a total of 34. “We hope that in the new European Commission regulation there is that certainty in speeding up the procedures to reopen the fields,” he underlined.

From Enel to Fincantieri

The meeting was also attended by representatives of the industrial sector including Enel, StMicroelectronics, Leonardo and Fincantieri, “We believe it is important to strengthen the provisions of the Critical Raw Materials Act in defining the requirements of strategic projects”, said Flavio Cattaneo, CEO of the Enel group. “Securing supplies must be a priority for cooperation between European states”, added Leonardo’s CEO, Roberto Cingolani. “Having guaranteed access to raw materials is essential – underlined Pierroberto Folgiero, CEO of Fincantieri – I am thinking in particular of copper, steel and lithium”.

The Italian requirement of raw materials

According to a study carried out by the Iren and Ambrosetti group, by 2040 the Italian need for critical strategic raw materials is expected to grow up to 11 times compared to today. In 2040, recycling will be able to satisfy from 20% to 32% of Italy’s annual need for strategic raw materials, exceeding the 15% target set by the European Commission, provided that the plants are increased: the potential that can be activated requires 7 new metallurgy plants for a total investment of approximately 336 million euro. The study shows that to date China is the main European supplier for 56% of critical raw materials. If China were to cut off the supply of rare earths to Europe, between now and 2030 241 GW of wind power (47% of the total) and 33.8 million electric vehicles (66% of the total) would be at risk, making it impossible to achieve objectives linked to the European guidelines.