Recital 11

(11) To decrease the Union’s growing risk of supply disruptions likely to distort competition and fragment the internal market, the Commission and Member States should strengthen the capacity at the different stages of the value chain of strategic raw materials, in order to contribute to meeting benchmarks related to Union’s capacities and diversification of supply. Such benchmarks should help to guide efforts to strengthen Union capacities along all stages of the strategic raw materials value chain, including extraction, processing and recycling, and to increase the diversification of external supplies of strategic raw materials. The aim should be to increase capacities for each strategic raw material at each stage of the value chain, while aiming to achieve overall capacity benchmarks at Union level for extraction, processing and recycling of strategic raw materials. First, the Union should increase the use of its own geological resources of strategic raw materials and build up capacity to allow it to extract the raw materials needed to produce at least 10 % of the Union’s consumption of strategic raw materials. Taking into account the fact that extraction capacity is highly dependent on the availability of Union geological resources, meeting that benchmark is dependent on such availability. Second, in order to build a full value chain and prevent any bottlenecks at intermediate stages, the Union processing capacity should also be increased and the Union should be able to produce at least 40 % of its annual consumption of strategic raw materials. Third, it is expected that in the coming decades a growing share of the Union’s consumption of strategic raw materials can be covered by secondary raw materials, which would improve both the security and the sustainability of the Union’s raw materials supply. Union recycling capacity should therefore be able to produce at least 25 % of the Union’s annual consumption of strategic raw materials and the Union should be able to recycle significantly increasing amounts of each strategic raw material from waste. For waste streams and strategic raw materials for which sufficient information is available to estimate the Union recycling capacity as a share of the strategic raw materials contained in those waste streams, an additional waste-based benchmark should be set. Accompanying efforts to improve resource efficiency through research and innovation, substitution, awareness-raising and other relevant measures will also facilitate meeting those benchmarks. Those benchmarks refer to the 2030 time horizon, in alignment with the Union’s climate and energy targets set in Regulation (EU) 2021/1119 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3) and the digital targets set in Decision (EU) 2022/2481 of the European Parliament and of the Council (4), which they underpin. Furthermore, quality jobs, including skills development and job-to-job transitions, will address risks in the sectoral labour market and help ensure the Union’s competitiveness. The Commission and Member States should also incentivise technological progress and resource efficiency in order to moderate the expected increase in Union consumption of critical raw materials below appropriate reference projections. In the context of preparing implementing measures pursuant to Directive 2009/125/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (5), the Commission should consider the possible contribution of ecodesign requirements to the achievement of the Union priorities set out in this Regulation.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-10-13 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.