The European Union, the world’s largest single market, has introduced new measures to reduce their “dependency” on mineral imports from outside the bloc.
The European Council adopted the Critical Raw Materials Act on June 30, a regulation that seeks to utilise the bloc’s Common Market and partnerships to “diversify critical raw material supply chains, which currently rely on imports from a handful of third countries.”
A spokesperson of the European Commission told The EastAfrican that the bloc has taken this route because of the lessons they have learnt from the recent supply-chain disruptions that significantly impacted their supply and consequently costs of products associated with the raw materials.
“The urgency of such measures is made clear by the recent Covid-related supply disruptions, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, disrupting, for example, nickel and titanium markets, and the Chinese export restrictions on gallium and germanium introduced last week,” the spokesperson said.
Source: The East Africa
