As Aluminium Deutschland e.V. (AD) reports, the "Critical Raw Materials Act" (CRMA) presented by the European Commission is intended as a toolbox to overcome Europe's dependence on strategic raw materials.
In principle, the German aluminium industry welcomes the efforts to make Europe's supply chains resilient and future-proof. The Commission has already identified strategic technologies and sectors in the concretisation of the "Green Deal". The aim of the CRMA in this is to secure and strengthen the supply chains of these strategic materials. AD President Rob van Gils stressed: "We are surprised, to say the least, that the Commission has not identified aluminium as a strategic material. Without a strong, cohesive and resilient aluminium competence chain, we are only shifting the risk of strategic dependency instead of overcoming it. This will not bring us closer to Europe's goals. The switch to battery electric vehicles, the expansion of renewable energies and the grids cannot be implemented without aluminium. And we are well advised to maintain these well-established chains of competence in Germany and Europe." China by far the largest production location Decisive for the risk assessment must not only be the physical scarcity of a material, but also the regional concentration of its processing. President van Gils: "China already accounts for 58 per cent of the production of primary aluminium. In the case of magnesium, we have already had to learn that a Chinese decision in autumn 2021 has put the world market in massive disarray. We run the risk of making the same mistake a second time."
