The 2020 EU Critical Raw Materials List

Last updated: 26 October 2022

The EU’s list of Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) is a list of raw materials, mostly minerals, that are considered strategic to the EU’s’ economy and that have high supply risk.

The European Commission, which maintains the list, stresses that these minerals are at the heart of a broad range of goods and applications used in everyday life and modern technologies. Their importance is growing even faster as a result of the shift to low-carbon energy systems. As such, reliable and unhindered supply is of critical importance to EU countries.

This document lists raw materials that are both crucial to maintaining a healthy economic system, and whose supply may be at risk, because of - but not limited to - geopolitical, geographical, and geological factors. 

The list aims at helping governments and industries take better-informed decisions, and improve their own strategies to cope with the risks associated with those minerals. This list is updated every three years (2011, 2014, 2017, 2020) to keep up with the rapid evolutions of the industry. The methodology used to establish the list was published in July 2017.

As of 2020, the established list contains 30 minerals or groups of minerals:

  1. Antimony
  2. Baryte
  3. Beryllium
  4. Bismuth
  5. Borate
  6. Cobalt
  7. Coking Coal
  8. Fluorspar
  9. Gallium
  10. Germanium
  11. Hafnium
  12. Heavy Rare Earth Elements
  13. Light Rare Earth Elements
  14. Indium
  15. Magnesium
  16. Natural Graphite
  17. Natural Rubber
  18. Niobium
  19. Platinum Group Metals
  20. Phosphate Rock
  21.  Phosphorus
  22. Scandium
  23. Silicon metal
  24. Tantalum
  25. Tungsten
  26. Vanadium
  27. Bauxite
  28. Lithium
  29. Titanium
  30. Strontium

 

Note that the bolded items were newly added in 2020.

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