EU Completely Reliant on Imports from Foreign Powers for 14 ‘Critical’ Raw Materials – Report

A truck transports magnesium chloride from the lithium mine of the Chilean company SQM (So
MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP via Getty Images
Peter Caddle

The European Union is completely reliant on foreign imports for 14 “critical” raw materials needed for industry, a study has found.

Over half of the “critical” raw materials utilised within the European Union are obtained entirely through foreign imports, a report published on Wednesday has found. The materials discussed in the report include lithium, phosphate, cobalt, tungsten, silicon, and graphite.

Penned by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), the report also warns that these imports often come from “less democratic”  states such as China, a factor that it argues is putting the entire EU economy at risk.

According to the paper, 14 of the 27 raw materials deemed to be “critical” used in both Germany and the wider EU are 100 per cent sourced from foreign imports, with over 95 per cent of supply for three further raw materials also being sourced from abroad.

“This year, Russia showed us drastically how dependence on raw materials can be used by autocratic regimes as a means of political pressure and what serious economic consequences this dependence has,” Lukas Menkhoff, head of the World Economy department at DIW Berlin, remarked regarding the dependency.

Such materials, the report notes, are of extreme importance for a wide variety of industries, such as those involved in the production of cars and mobile phones, with the manufacturing of batteries, gearboxes and even wind turbines all said to be heavily reliant on the consistent availability of these imports.

To make matters worse, there is a significant lack of diversity in where such raw resources are being sourced, with the EU sourcing more than 90 per cent of its magnesium and rare earth materials from China.

The growing reliance on China for sources of allegedly green energy such as wind and solar has not only impacted the EU, with the UK also finding itself beholden to the communist nation to fulfil its lofty climate goals.

The solar industry in Britain, in particular, is heavily reliant on Beijing, which reportedly supplies up to 40 per cent of all panels in the UK, many of which are alleged to have been built using slave labour in the region of Xinjiang, where millions of Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities have been interned in concentration camps.

The increasing reliance on China in the UK and Germany comes as both countries have shied away from more reliable forms of domestic energy production, with both lagging behind France in terms of nuclear power and both deciding to ban fracking at home while turning to countries like Russia and Qatar to meet the energy needs of the public.

The exporting of mining for rare earth minerals used in wind turbines and solar panels also raises ethical questions, given that they are often mined with lax standards, leading to communities in Asia and Africa facing serious health concerns as a result of toxic pollution seeping into the ground and water.

Speaking on the issues surrounding the availability of such “critical” materials, the report’s author, Marius Zeevaert, urged for more to be done at the EU level to ensure the supply of such essential resources remains secure.

“We assume that countries that are considered to be particularly undemocratic also tend to be less reliable when it comes to deliveries,” he said, arguing that the bloc must become less reliant on such nations by diversifying supply, as well as implementing other security measures such as stockpiling.

He also suggested that some of the materials that are currently imported could be sourced locally, with the European continent allegedly having harvestable sources of both magnesium and lithium that could be availed of should lawmakers permit mining.

However, although the EU has already learnt the hard way as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war that being over-reliant on a mostly-hostile foreign power can result in disaster, that does not necessarily mean any steps will actually be taken at either the EU or national level to avoid a similar crisis occurring again.

For instance, Germany — which the report describes as having largely all of the same issues as the EU in terms of being overly reliant on importing “critical” raw materials from abroad — has seen China rise to become its single largest trading partner.

Much like how its overreliance on Russian oil and gas has resulted in the country’s energy grid being severely threatened to the point of making rolling blackouts a future possibility, an arrangement that poses an existential risk to the country’s economy should a substantial trade war erupt between the West and the Communist nation.

The huge reliance on China could also end up posing a danger to the country’s democracy, effectively handing the country’s Communist Party leverage with which they may be able to strong-arm the European country.

“If Russia is a storm, China is climate change,” Thomas Haldenwang, president of Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution — the body which works to safeguard the country’s democracy — warned.

“We must not allow a situation in which the Chinese state can influence political events in Germany,” he went on to say.

Follow Peter Caddle on Twitter: @Peter_Caddle
Follow Breitbart London on Facebook: Breitbart London

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.