The EU Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) aims to secure a sustainable, resilient, and ethical supply of minerals essential for the green and digital transition.
Inter alia, the EU seeks to reduce strategic dependence on single suppliers (especially China) with a target of no more than 65 per cent dependency on a single third country for any strategic raw materials by 2030.
The EU also seeks to foster strategic partnerships with resource-rich countries by ensuring that at least 30 per cent of critical minerals are sourced from EU trade partners in Africa, Canada and Latin America.
To counter China’s dominance and footprint in Africa’s critical minerals supply chains, the EU should explore forging strategic partnerships with Africa, with special focus on areas where Chinese competition is weak. The EU should seek to address the continent’s quest for local value addition, ethical sourcing, and mutually shared economic benefits.
China currently dominates Africa’s critical mineral supply chains, controlling 60% to 90% of refining for cobalt, lithium, rare earth elements, and copper. The abandonment of Africa by the USA under the Donald Trump administration presents the EU with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to re-enter new win-win partnerships with resource-rich African economies, more so in the Great Lakes Region under the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region peace, security and development protocols.
The EU, with its historical ties, development aid and trade agreements, has a strategic opportunity to challenge China’s dominance—but it must act quickly, smartly and collaboratively with African nations, and domestic and international civil society. Below are areas of potential collaborations for consideration.
The strength and future of Africa’s potential as a global supplier of critical minerals for the green energy revolution lies in the underbelly of its richly underexploited mineral geology.
Supporting and partnering with African countries to explore, collect and analyse this data, followed by the geological modelling and resource estimation, and culminating in economic resource-reserves evaluation and feasibility studies to assess the commercial viability of the continent’s reserves should be at the fore front of the Euro-Afro critical minerals development partnership envisaged under the Critical Raw Materials Act.
Strengthening EU-Africa trade and investment frameworks
Modernizing the EU-Africa partnership by expanding the EU’s Global Gateway Initiative (€300bn rival to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to fund mining-to-refining infrastructure in Africa.
There is need to reform the Africa-EU Raw Materials Partnership (2022) to focus on local refining and value addition, not just extraction and exportation of raw materials to the EU markets. There is an opportunity to leverage the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to integrate EU-backed mineral supply chains.
Offering better win-win deals than China
In the current green-energy economy and critical minerals boom cycle, Africa welcomes mutually-beneficial, profit-sharing arrangements with its development partners in the global north. The EU can partner with the AU to drive the African Mining Vision and ultimately the EU’s sustainable materials supply and access vision.
Supporting African nations in promoting local participation in critical minerals projects will ensure that African nations and resource-rich host communities get higher royalties, equity stakes and benefits in mines (unlike China’s debt-for-minerals model).
Avoid bottom-less “resource-for-infrastructure” traps and take lessons from China’s Sicomines (DRC) model. African nations are advised to avoid infrastructure loans that lock them into long-term mineral exports. Become the leaders on promoting transparency, accountability and mineral sector governance aligned to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives (EITI), ICGLR-RINR protocol and OECD standards.
Embrace open bidding and anti-corruption clauses (unlike China’s opaque deals) and most recently, Trump’s executive order pausing the prosecution of Americans accused of bribing foreign government officials while trying to win or retain businesses in their countries; a roll-back on the anti- corruption gains made under S. 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Securities Exchange Act, which is focused on the elimination of illicitly-sourced conflict minerals in foreign markets.
Building local processing and refining capacity in Africa
Establish EU-funded critical minerals beneficiation, refineries and industrial hubs. Co-investing with African governments in lithium hydroxide plants (Zimbabwe, Namibia), cobalt refineries (DRC, Zambia), and rare earth elements separation and processing in South Africa, Madagascar and Uganda.
The EU should also exploit the opportunity to support DRC-Zambia battery-grade cobalt refining as a pilot project to break China’s monopoly while demonstrating its intentions in building sustainable win-win relations in advancing continental local value addition and shared macro and micro economic benefits with African countries.
Technology transfer and skills development
The EU mining firms and African universities should explore opportunities for joint research and development and training of African specialists in sustainable refining, building on initiatives such as the joint ventures with EU battery makers (Northvolt, BASF) to build cathode plants in Morocco or South Africa.
The EU could also support collaborative innovation startups between African and EU universities in promotion of technology and knowledge transfer with special focus on metallurgical and mineral beneficiation and value addition skilling.
Promotion of green and sustainable mining standards
Enforce EU Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) standards — low-carbon, ethical mining — as a competitive edge over China’s polluting refineries. Promotion of responsible supply chains under the ICGLR – Regional Initiative Against the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources (RINR) by expanding the scope of the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation to include cobalt, copper, lithium, rare earth elements, gallium, graphite, manganese, nickel and others.
Support towards traceability, chain of custody and certification of African minerals as “green” for EU EV and renewable markets will play a significant role in addressing conflict, instability, organized crime and corruption and instability in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
Securing long-term off-take agreements and supply chains
The EU-Africa ‘Minerals for Batteries’ deals, guaranteed purchase agreements (like the EU-Chile lithium deal) to ensure stable demand and sustainable supply of African refined minerals.
For example, the EU could negotiate a 10-to-20-year cobalt contract with DRC to counter Chinese middlemen. Building alternative transport routes and infrastructure The Lobito Corridor (Angola-DRC-Zambia) and building of several continental EU-backed rail line to export refined minerals to Europe, not China, starting with the expansion of Tanzania’s Dar-es- Salaam port and funding to compete with China’s Bagamoyo port.
Diplomatic and geopolitical leverage
Supporting African mineral agencies in mineral policies and regulatory frameworks. Since the launch of the Africa Mining Vision in 2009, many African countries continue to struggle with the development and re-alignment of their mineral policies, fiscal and regulatory frameworks with the Africa Mining Vision.
Supporting African nations to review their policy, fiscal and regulatory frameworks as well as re-negotiation of unfair Chinese contracts (e.g., DRC’s 2023 review of Sicomines deal) will enable mineral-rich economies retain a significant amount of value for the sustainable development of the region.
Strengthening collaborations between international and local NGOs work in the promotion of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) in mineral rich countries. The death of USAID has left a huge void in funding and support for rights defenders in mineral-rich host communities within the Great Lakes region.
The absence of government and civil society services exposes communities to human rights abuses, courtesy of mauling Chinese illicitly financed militias, criminal gangs and corrupt government security forces in the Great Lakes region.
Funding, supporting and strengthening collaborations between international, regional and national non-government organisations is critical to building community resilience in countering resource-funded conflicts, insecurity, human rights abuses and all forms injustices against women, children and other vulnerable communities in resource rich countries.
To wrap things up, the EU could counter China’s debt diplomacy, debt relief and mineral-backed loans, by undertake to buy future critical minerals output to pay off Chinese loans while supporting the Great Lakes Region member states to secure their volatile mineral-rich region such as eastern DRC. Strengthening the capacity of the DRC security forces to counter foreign aggression and expansionist ideologies, address mining- driven insecurity, curb illegal conflict- financing, mineral smuggling (e.g., DRC’s illegal artisanal, tin, tantalum, tungsten and cobalt).
Anti-money laundering programs to stop corrupt elites from diverting mineral profits to fund instability of Eastern DRC will go a long way in addressing the EU’s fears of supply chain disruptions from conflict and unstable mineral rich countries in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
acepolicy@gmail.com
The writer is a Great Lakes Region mineral and energy policy analyst, and the executive director, Africa Centre for Energy and Mineral Policy.