Europe has just learned an uncomfortable lesson. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Union moved at unprecedented speed to cut the umbilical cord of Russian gas. He succeeded—more or less, because It has been a story in fits and starts– with REPowerEU: new infrastructures, supplier diversification and painful but effective adjustments.
The metals are coming. However, in the background, a deeper vulnerability that is difficult to reverse has been consolidated. As Richard Holtum, director of Trafigura, warned, in his column for the Financial Times“Europe has stopped being dependent on Russian gas and has become vulnerable in something even more structural: its metal supply chains.” And that, according to himself, has a very simple and very serious consequence: “Without critical metals there are no semiconductors, no renewable energy, no military equipment, no artificial intelligence.”
The continent has emerged from a trap to enter a labyrinth.
The labyrinth of critical metals. The root of the problem is twofold: an overwhelming dependence on foreign countries and a silent erosion of European industrial capacity to produce and transform the minerals that sustain the modern economy. Holtum sums it up with a devastating fact: Europe has not built a single new refining complex since the 1990s, and in the last decade it has closed or cut about a third of its existing ones. Meanwhile, China deployed a deliberate strategy to absorb global refining capacity, the key link in the chain. Today controls between 70% and 90% of global processing of many essential metals.
The figures confirm it. A European meta-analysis, published in Springer Naturereveals that the EU does not produce any of the gallium, germanium, vanadium or rare earths that it consumes; only residual percentages of lithium (0.1%), cobalt (0.5%), nickel (1%) or natural graphite. The same study concludes that the community objective of covering 10% of its needs for critical raw materials by 2030 is simply “unrealistic” for most metals. Europe depends almost entirely on others to access the materials that make it possible to manufacture everything from batteries to advanced weapons.
Added to this structural weakness is a problem of scale: demand will multiply between six and fifteen times between now and 2050 due to the electrification of transport, the massive deployment of renewables and accelerated digitalization. The Union needs more metals than ever just when it has the least capacity to produce or refine them.
A strategic industry that is reeling. The impact is already visible. According to Euronewsthe European steel industry speaks openly of “survival” in the face of the flood of heavily subsidized Chinese steel and punitive American tariffs. The chemical industry, another historical pillar of the European industrial fabric, is going through even more severe deterioration: closed plants, evaporated investments and a growing consensus among analysts that “deindustrialization is no longer a risk: it is a reality.”
The irony is bitter. The EU wants to electrify everything, but it does not control the minimum materials for that electrification. Wind turbines contain more than 8,000 parts, many containing critical metals; solar panels generate increasing amounts of waste whose recycling is still in its infancy; 85% of a turbine can be recycled, but almost no one does. What should be the European passport to energy autonomy becomes a bottleneck that threatens to stop factories, delay infrastructure and undermine the green transition.
China, from supplier to industrial minotaur. Friction with China is no longer just commercial: it is structural. Beijing has tightened its export controls on critical metals in the last year. According to the World Economic Forum, Recent restrictions on rare earths, gallium, germanium and antimony have raised prices, forced European plants to shut down and generated a climate of permanent uncertainty for entire industries.
can be explained with a recent example: To obtain import licenses, German companies must provide the Chinese government with extremely detailed information: manufacturing diagrams, photographs indicating where rare earths are located in a product, customer lists, inventory volumes, production data for the last three years and future forecasts. Meanwhile, the German government acknowledges that it does not even have that level of detail about its own companies. The paradox is evident: China knows more about the German industrial anatomy than the German state itself.
That asymmetry fuels a form of surgical coercion: delaying a critical license here, slowing a key flow there, straining bilateral negotiations, pushing through rotating checks every six months. The underlying message is clear: whoever depends, obeys, or better known as “Second China Shock”.
A response that arrives late. The European reaction is underway, although many recognize that it is late. According to the European CommissionBefore the end of the year, Brussels will present the new RESourceEU plan, aimed at guaranteeing supply, creating strategic reserves, strengthening agreements with third countries and boosting mining and refining within the EU. To this will be added the creation of a European Center for Critical Raw Materials, in charge of coordinating joint purchases, monitoring risks and acting as a nerve center for industrial intelligence.
The Commission’s work program for 2026, under the motto “Europe’s Independence Moment”also places access to raw materials at the heart of its sovereignty strategy. Along with strengthening defense capabilities, protecting critical infrastructure and promoting innovation, Brussels admits for the first time that without stable access to essential minerals no industrial autonomy project is viable.
The return of stockpiling. One of the most relevant developments is the debate on strategic reserves. According to a Financial Times reportthe EU will launch a consultation to decide which metals to store, how much to buy and how to finance it. It is a profound change: Europe has had oil reserves for decades, but has never considered storing critical minerals.
However, an obvious problem arises. Some materials—such as lithium hydroxide, recalls Fastmarkets—have a useful life of just six months even when stored correctly. Others, such as certain metal oxides, require very specific humidity and temperature conditions. And in the case of metals such as gallium or germanium, buying massively would imply acquiring them from China. The paradox is transparent: Europe could try to reinforce its autonomy by buying more from those who generate its vulnerability.
The political obstacle is not minor either. The academic study that analyzed the European mining potential points out that there are relevant reserves of several metals within the continent, but the impediments are social and regulatory: local opposition, slow bureaucracy, permits that take decades, regulatory insecurity. Without mining or smelting, any European plan risks remaining statements.
Essential ally and inevitable rival. The other variable is the United States. Washington is two years ahead in this race. As we have explained in Xatakathe US and Australia have signed an agreement that could mobilize $8.5 billion for critical minerals projects, including new gallium refineries. The Pentagon has already committed hundreds of millions to contracts for antimony and other strategic metals. And with both Biden and Trump, mineral diplomacy is a central part of American foreign strategy: investments in Ukraine, railway projects in Angola, alliances with Japan, South Korea and Canada, and strong pressure to ensure supply chains aligned with Washington.
The risk for Europe is obvious. If the United States absorbs the majority of the alternative supply to China – Australia, Canada, Africa – the EU could be left without suppliers with which to diversify. The window narrows as geopolitical tensions increase.
Forecasts. Europe managed to escape from the embrace of Russian gas, but now it is moving through a labyrinth where every wall is metal and every exit depends on a foreign supplier. European strategic autonomy – industrial, energy, military and technological – is based on resources that it does not control, in a world where whoever dominates the metals dominates the future.
The question is no longer whether the Union will be able to build its new industrial sovereignty, but whether it will be able to do so in time. Because in this new era, metals are not raw materials: they are instruments of power. And Europe, for the moment, is always one step late.
Image | Unsplash
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings