About
As part of the Green Deal Industry Plan, the Commission presented the proposal for the Critical Raw Materials Act on 16 March 2023 and the CRMA entered into force 23 May 2024.
The European Critical Raw Materials Act aims to strengthen EU’s critical raw materials capacities along all stages of the value chain. It aims to increase resilience by reducing dependencies, increase preparedness and promote supply chain sustainability and circularity.
The Act has set out key pillars to achieve these objectives:
- Identifies a list of critical raw materials and a list of strategic raw materials crucial for technologies for the green and digital transition, as well as for defence and space.
- Sets benchmarks for domestic capacities along the strategic raw material supply chain to be reached by 2030.
- Building European Capacities by strengthen European raw materials value chain.
- Improving resilience.
- Investing in research, innovation and skills.
- Promoting a more sustainable and circular critical raw materials economy.
The Act establishes benchmarks to increase capacities for extraction, processing, and recycling of critical raw materials in the EU and guide diversification efforts. In addition, it creates a framework to select and implement Strategic Projects, which can benefit from streamlined permitting and enabling conditions for access to finance; as well as sets out national requirements to develop exploration programmes in Europe. Moreover, the Regulation will improve the circularity and the efficient use of the critical raw materials by creating value chains for recycled critical raw materials. To ensure resilience of the supply chains, the Act allows the monitoring of critical raw materials supply chains, and information exchange and future coordination on strategic raw materials' stocks among Member States and large companies.
Who does it impact?
EU Member States.
The Act is marked as EEA relevant by the EU and under scrutiny for incorporation into the EEA Agreement by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
Status: In force
Entered into force in the EU 23 May 2024.
Relation to other initiatives and regulations
The Critical Raw Material Act is part of the Green Deal Industrial Plan. Presented in parallel with the EU’s Net Zero Industry Act, the Critical Raw Materials Act will help to scale up the EU manufacture of key carbon neutral or ‘net-zero’ technologies to ensure a secure, sustainable and competitive supply chain for clean energy to reach the EU’s climate and energy ambitions.
Thommessen's comments
The CRMA (and the NZIA) have been discussed several times in the Norwegian Parliament's European Committee. Six ministries have been involved in the work on the NZIA and CRMA, and part of the work involves assessing which adjustments are considered necessary to potentially incorporate the regulations into the EEA Agreement. The Ministry of Trade and Fisheries held two information and input meetings about the regulations in October 2024 to inform business actors and other stakeholders about the status of our work on the regulations.
As stated in a press release 28 March 2025, the government will work to ensure that the EU's legislative proposal on critical raw materials (CRMA) is incorporated into the EEA Agreement, thereby becoming part of the Norwegian legal framework. The Minister of Trade says that Norwegian authorities have worked closely with the other EEA countries and the EU on the development of the CRMA and that they have thoroughly reviewed the proposal, received feedback from the business community through consultation meetings, and assessed its significance for Norwegian interests. According to the Minister, their assessment is that it is important, and in line with Norwegian interests, to make the CRMA part of the EEA Agreement.
The two Norwegian projects, Nussir ASA and Norgraph AS, have been granted the status of strategic projects in third countries by the European Commission under the CRMA. The European Commission selects strategic projects based on applications submitted by companies. Independent experts assess whether the projects meet the criteria set out in Article 6 of the CRMA, including, among other things, whether the projects make a meaningful contribution to the EU’s security of supply, are technically feasible, and are implemented in a sustainable manner. The CRMA’s framework for expedited permitting for strategic projects will only apply in Norway once the CRMA has been incorporated into the EEA Agreement.
On 25 September 2025, the European Commission invited project promoters to apply to the second call for strategic raw materials projects, and the second cut-off date is on 15 January 2026.