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Critical minerals (CMs) have become a strategic priority for the European Union (EU) amid the green and digital transitions. These resources – including lithium, cobalt, rare earths and nickel – are essential for clean energy technologies, defence systems and electronics. Yet, their processing and refining are highly concentrated in a few countries, leaving the EU especially vulnerable to supply disruptions and fuelling geopolitical tensions.

Recent shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, have further exposed the fragility of supply chains. At the same time, extracting and trading CMs pose severe environmental and social challenges, from high carbon footprints to local community impacts. EU trade policy is therefore confronted with a trilemma: how to safeguard economic competitiveness, ensure en­vironmental sustainability and enhance security of supply.

This policy brief summarises research tracing how the Euro­pean Commission’s trade discourse on CMs has evolved to address the trilemma (Laurens, 2025). Initially, com­muni­cations focused narrowly on free trade and market access for raw materials. Gradually, sustainability and security considerations entered the narrative. Most recently, the EU has embraced a hybrid framing, simultaneously highlighting economic, environ­mental and security objectives in its trade discourse on CMs.

Although this hybrid discursive approach can help build broader support for CM policies and agreements by appealing to diverse stakeholders, it also demands careful policy design to minimise trade-offs and deliver on its promises. Without credible implementation and genuine integration of economic, environmental and security objectives, hybrid framing risks remaining largely rhetorical and failing to steer policy in practice.

Key policy messages:

• The EU should adopt an integrated approach that effectively addresses economic, sustainability and security goals together while anticipating trade-offs to support more robust CM policies. This requires strong coordination across trade, industry, environ­ment and security-related directorates-general to align CM strategies, avoid policy conflicts and maximise synergies. It may also require short-term economic sacrifices for long-term resilience.
• Early and meaningful engagement with research institutions, civil society, local communities and industry should move beyond formal consultation and enable genuine co-creation of solutions. Dialogue should begin before key decisions on CMs are finalised, incorporate stakeholder input trans­parently, and respond to concerns about sustain­ability and security of supply.
• CM policies and agreements should provide for binding obligations and concrete implementation plans to ensure environmental and labour pro­tection, local value addition, skills development and technology transfer in resource-rich but eco­nomically vulnerable regions. Listening to partner governments and local communities as well as investing in the knowledge of local political, social and environ­mental contexts are essential for building trust and long-term partnerships.
• International cooperation on CMs should be strengthened through inclusive arrangements that involve both major consumers and producing countries. Clubs composed primarily of resource-poor but wealthy economies risk being perceived as exclusionary.

Critical minerals (CMs) have become a strategic priority for the European Union (EU) amid the green and digital transitions. These resources – including lithium, cobalt, rare earths and nickel – are essential for clean energy technologies, defence systems and electronics. Yet, their processing and refining are highly concentrated in a few countries, leaving the EU especially vulnerable to supply disruptions and fuelling geopolitical tensions.

Recent shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, have further exposed the fragility of supply chains. At the same time, extracting and trading CMs pose severe environmental and social challenges, from high carbon footprints to local community impacts. EU trade policy is therefore confronted with a trilemma: how to safeguard economic competitiveness, ensure en­vironmental sustainability and enhance security of supply.

This policy brief summarises research tracing how the Euro­pean Commission’s trade discourse on CMs has evolved to address the trilemma (Laurens, 2025). Initially, com­muni­cations focused narrowly on free trade and market access for raw materials. Gradually, sustainability and security considerations entered the narrative. Most recently, the EU has embraced a hybrid framing, simultaneously highlighting economic, environ­mental and security objectives in its trade discourse on CMs.

Although this hybrid discursive approach can help build broader support for CM policies and agreements by appealing to diverse stakeholders, it also demands careful policy design to minimise trade-offs and deliver on its promises. Without credible implementation and genuine integration of economic, environmental and security objectives, hybrid framing risks remaining largely rhetorical and failing to steer policy in practice.

Key policy messages:

• The EU should adopt an integrated approach that effectively addresses economic, sustainability and security goals together while anticipating trade-offs to support more robust CM policies. This requires strong coordination across trade, industry, environ­ment and security-related directorates-general to align CM strategies, avoid policy conflicts and maximise synergies. It may also require short-term economic sacrifices for long-term resilience.
• Early and meaningful engagement with research institutions, civil society, local communities and industry should move beyond formal consultation and enable genuine co-creation of solutions. Dialogue should begin before key decisions on CMs are finalised, incorporate stakeholder input trans­parently, and respond to concerns about sustain­ability and security of supply.
• CM policies and agreements should provide for binding obligations and concrete implementation plans to ensure environmental and labour pro­tection, local value addition, skills development and technology transfer in resource-rich but eco­nomically vulnerable regions. Listening to partner governments and local communities as well as investing in the knowledge of local political, social and environ­mental contexts are essential for building trust and long-term partnerships.
• International cooperation on CMs should be strengthened through inclusive arrangements that involve both major consumers and producing countries. Clubs composed primarily of resource-poor but wealthy economies risk being perceived as exclusionary.

The bloc should urgently rethink its testing strategies, warned the ECDC

Europe’s industrial base is at risk of collapse. Out of 18 sectors analyzed, only aerospace/defence remains competitive. Automotive, steel, chemicals, telecom, solar—all are losing ground to global rivals.  This is not fate; it is the result of corporate and political choices, from the creation of global overcapacities to austerity measures. This is the stark message […]

The first CAP simplification package followed a wave of farmer protests across the EU and was deemed politically urgent by the Commission

Plus Omnibus compromise, a sneak-peek on Monday's defence Foreign Affairs Council, and dispatches from the European Space Agency summit in Bremen

In today's edition: Donazzan's Space Act, CSAM file moves, Shein RFI

The world is moving away from a single, post-2000 consensus around multilateralism and poverty reduction. What replaces it depends on which coalition wins the argument, and then bakes that argument into institutions and finance. So what are the visions for the global development architecture in 2030 that we see? One is ‘Aid Retrenchment with Nationalist Conditionality’. Assistance is folded into foreign, trade, and interior policy. Grants shrink, multilateral agencies are sidelined, and cooperation becomes bilateral deals tied to migration control, geopolitical alignment, or access to minerals. Rights, gender, and climate justice recede. A second world is ‘Strategic Multilateralism’. The multilateral development banks stay central, but their remit narrows to macro-stability, crisis response, and “risk containment”. Concessional finance is rationed to countries seen as fragile or geostrategic. Aid rhetoric turns technocratic and securitised and health framed as biosecurity. A third vision is ‘Pluralist Development Cooperation’. There is no single system, but many partially overlapping regimes: Chinese, Indian, Gulf, regional, and club initiatives. Low and middle income countries gain bargaining space by choosing across offers. The trade-off is fragmentation. Rules on debt workouts, safeguards, and transparency diverge, and global public goods struggle for predictable funding. Finally, a fourth vision is ‘Global Solidarity 2.0’. Development cooperation is rebuilt around shared risks such as climate stability, pandemics, antimicrobial resistance, and debt contagion. North and South co-lead a pooled Global Public Goods Facility. Contributions reflect income and carbon profile, and access reflects exposure to cross-border risk. The donor-recipient binary fades, even if frictions persist.

The world is moving away from a single, post-2000 consensus around multilateralism and poverty reduction. What replaces it depends on which coalition wins the argument, and then bakes that argument into institutions and finance. So what are the visions for the global development architecture in 2030 that we see? One is ‘Aid Retrenchment with Nationalist Conditionality’. Assistance is folded into foreign, trade, and interior policy. Grants shrink, multilateral agencies are sidelined, and cooperation becomes bilateral deals tied to migration control, geopolitical alignment, or access to minerals. Rights, gender, and climate justice recede. A second world is ‘Strategic Multilateralism’. The multilateral development banks stay central, but their remit narrows to macro-stability, crisis response, and “risk containment”. Concessional finance is rationed to countries seen as fragile or geostrategic. Aid rhetoric turns technocratic and securitised and health framed as biosecurity. A third vision is ‘Pluralist Development Cooperation’. There is no single system, but many partially overlapping regimes: Chinese, Indian, Gulf, regional, and club initiatives. Low and middle income countries gain bargaining space by choosing across offers. The trade-off is fragmentation. Rules on debt workouts, safeguards, and transparency diverge, and global public goods struggle for predictable funding. Finally, a fourth vision is ‘Global Solidarity 2.0’. Development cooperation is rebuilt around shared risks such as climate stability, pandemics, antimicrobial resistance, and debt contagion. North and South co-lead a pooled Global Public Goods Facility. Contributions reflect income and carbon profile, and access reflects exposure to cross-border risk. The donor-recipient binary fades, even if frictions persist.

The world is moving away from a single, post-2000 consensus around multilateralism and poverty reduction. What replaces it depends on which coalition wins the argument, and then bakes that argument into institutions and finance. So what are the visions for the global development architecture in 2030 that we see? One is ‘Aid Retrenchment with Nationalist Conditionality’. Assistance is folded into foreign, trade, and interior policy. Grants shrink, multilateral agencies are sidelined, and cooperation becomes bilateral deals tied to migration control, geopolitical alignment, or access to minerals. Rights, gender, and climate justice recede. A second world is ‘Strategic Multilateralism’. The multilateral development banks stay central, but their remit narrows to macro-stability, crisis response, and “risk containment”. Concessional finance is rationed to countries seen as fragile or geostrategic. Aid rhetoric turns technocratic and securitised and health framed as biosecurity. A third vision is ‘Pluralist Development Cooperation’. There is no single system, but many partially overlapping regimes: Chinese, Indian, Gulf, regional, and club initiatives. Low and middle income countries gain bargaining space by choosing across offers. The trade-off is fragmentation. Rules on debt workouts, safeguards, and transparency diverge, and global public goods struggle for predictable funding. Finally, a fourth vision is ‘Global Solidarity 2.0’. Development cooperation is rebuilt around shared risks such as climate stability, pandemics, antimicrobial resistance, and debt contagion. North and South co-lead a pooled Global Public Goods Facility. Contributions reflect income and carbon profile, and access reflects exposure to cross-border risk. The donor-recipient binary fades, even if frictions persist.

Heßler v Commission
Staff Regulations of Officials
EU officials: entitlement to a tax abatement for a child receiving training ends at the latest on the child’s 26th birthday

Heßler kontra Bizottság
Tisztviselõk személyzeti szabályzata
EU officials: entitlement to a tax abatement for a child receiving training ends at the latest on the child’s 26th birthday

Heßler / Commission
Statut des fonctionnaires
Fonctionnaires de l’Union européenne : le droit à un abattement fiscal pour un enfant en formation prend fin au plus tard au 26e anniversaire de l’enfant

Au moins 55 personnes ont été tuées dans cet immense incendie.

Les « safaris humains » attirant de riches « chasseurs » étrangers qui venaient tirer sur des civils dans Sarajevo assiégée étaient connus dès la fin de l'année 1993. Alors que l'enquête ouverte par la justice italienne relance le dossier, les explications d'un ancien agent des renseignements militaires bosniens.

- Articles / Une - Diaporama - En premier, Une - Diaporama, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, Siège sarajevo, Défense, police et justice

Les « safaris humains » attirant de riches « chasseurs » étrangers qui venaient tirer sur des civils dans Sarajevo assiégée étaient connus dès la fin de l'année 1993. Alors que l'enquête ouverte par la justice italienne relance le dossier, les explications d'un ancien agent des renseignements militaires bosniens.

- Articles / Une - Diaporama - En premier, Une - Diaporama, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, Siège sarajevo, Défense, police et justice

Thursday 27 November

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Thursday 27 November

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Thursday 27 November

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Thursday 27 November

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP