The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, suggested this Tuesday at the Davos Forum (World Economic Forum), the creation of a “critical raw materials club” to exert pressure against the Chinese “monopoly” in such an essential area. for the climate transition. The Brussels proposal would go through an important agreement between the EU and countries like the US, the UK or Canada.
With this club, and according to Efe, Von der Leyen intends to collectively strengthen supply chains, diversify suppliers and reduce the EU’s dependence on China, which decreases to 98%, for the manufacture of key technologies such as the generation of wind power, hydrogen storage or batteries.
“Together, the EU and US have proposed almost a trillion euros to accelerate the clean energy economy. This has the potential to massively boost climate neutrality,” said Von der Leyen, adding that “the next few decades will see the greatest industrial transformation of our times, perhaps of any era”, and we highlight four axes in which the EU works to face this technological challenge.
The push for new laws
In addition to the aforementioned “club” for critical raw materials, the German politician advanced that the European Commission is preparing a Zero Net Industry Law that will complement the Rare Critical Materials Law, also in preparation, for “rare earths that are vital for manufacturing of key technologies”.
Brussels has also established to create a “regulatory environment” conducive to accelerating and scaling the conditions to develop the sectors of wind and solar energy, heat pumps, energy storage or clean hydrogen to achieve zero CO2 emissions at half century.
