EESC corner - Commodity markets and raw material policy in the EU

EESC corner – Commodity markets and raw material policy in the EU

At its plenary meeting on 14 July, the EESC adopted the opinion on commodity markets and raw materials.

Although there is no reason to believe that there exists any danger in long term global depletion of stocks of any vital critical raw material, a real threat of shortages in short term exists.

Shortage can be triggered by political or economic factors; some countries have already shown they would use such influence to impose their interests.

The raw material policy must form an integral component of the EU industrial policy:

To promote the resource efficiency of both primary energy sources and raw materials towards decoupling growth from consumption of resources
To have a consistent policy of urban mining that aims to recover and to make available such a resource of valuable raw materials and to promote the new skills and jobs related
To strengthen the research and development regarding possibilities of substitution of the critical raw materials
To maintain and increase employment in the European extractive sector ensuring continuous education and training of the workforce, accompanying the transition to more sustainable extractive activities by the social dialogue at all the levels.

Creation of a strategic stockpile of critical raw materials is among the potential solutions and recommends that an impact assessment be carried out to establish the feasibility of such a possibility in the light of the worst-case scenario. Key guidelines of raw material diplomacy should be defined and agreed among the member states. The EESC urges a more active foreign policy regarding security of raw materials for EU Industry. For this purpose bilateral trade agreements and diplomacy are of utmost importance to secure the critical raw materials for EU based industry.

Supporting current or new raw material extraction in the member states, which conforms to the EU environmental, social and health and safety legislation is a necessity. The domestic supply should be among the pillars of all raw material policies. Recycling – urban mining – is also the key priority of the raw material policy. European Commission’s measures to regulate the financial commodity markets aimed at improving transparency, enhancing the quality of information and improving oversight mechanisms are among essentials.

Josef Zboril, Member of EESC