The European Commission approved 46 new strategic raw materials projects on 9 October 2026. Across 16 EU member states, they cover extraction, processing and recycling, as well as projects combining supply-chain stages. The designation can help promoters navigate financing and permitting; it does not mean a project is already funded, permitted, under construction or producing material.
What the 46 projects cover
The Commission’s 9 October 2026 announcement groups the selected projects by their main supply-chain activity:
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| Project activity | Number | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Extraction | 8 | Projects focused on obtaining raw materials. |
| Processing | 11 | Projects focused on processing raw materials. |
| Recycling | 19 | Projects focused on recovering materials from used products or waste. |
| Integrated | 8 | Three combine extraction and processing; five combine processing and recycling. |
The selected projects are located in Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden. The Commission says they span 14 of the 17 strategic raw materials covered by the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA).
Materials linked to batteries, defence and permanent magnets
The Commission identifies seven lithium, 12 nickel, 10 cobalt, five manganese and four graphite projects as supporting the EU battery value chain. It also counts two magnesium and three tungsten projects relevant to defence and aerospace, plus four rare-earth projects supporting permanent magnets. These material-specific counts describe the portfolio’s focus; they are not a separate project-by-project progress report.
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What “strategic project” status means
Under the CRMA, strategic status is intended to support projects that strengthen supply chains for strategic raw materials. The Commission says project promoters can receive guidance on public and private funding opportunities. For projects in the EU, the status also brings access to expedited permitting processes.
The Commission’s CRMA policy page sets permit timeframes of 27 months for extraction projects and 15 months for processing and recycling projects. These are permitting deadlines, not a promise that every project will receive a permit by a particular date or begin operating then. Strategic status is not itself a grant, loan, permit, construction approval or guarantee of production.
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How the Commission selected the projects
For this selection round, the Commission says it received 102 applications and evaluated 92 with external experts. Its stated assessment criteria included security of supply, technical feasibility, environmental, social and governance standards, and cross-border benefits. The announcement does not explain why the remaining 10 applications were not among those evaluated.
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This is the second selection of EU projects under the CRMA. The Commission’s register states that 106 projects have been designated overall: 47 EU projects selected in March 2025, 13 projects in third countries and overseas countries and territories selected in June 2025, and the 46 EU projects announced in October 2026.
How the projects relate to the CRMA’s 2030 benchmarks
The CRMA sets EU-wide benchmarks for building capacity and diversifying supply by 2030. They are policy goals for the Union, not targets that the 46 projects are individually required to deliver:
- Extraction: EU capacity should be able to extract at least 10% of the Union’s annual consumption of strategic raw materials.
- Processing: EU capacity should be able to process at least 40% of annual consumption.
- Recycling: EU capacity should be able to recycle at least 25% of annual consumption.
- Diversification: No more than 65% of the EU’s annual consumption of any strategic raw material should come from a single third country.
The Commission estimates that the combined portfolio of EU strategic projects selected in 2025 and 2026, together with the 2025 projects in third countries and overseas territories, could cover all extraction benchmarks for lithium, nickel, rare earths, magnesium and tungsten. It estimates that this combined portfolio could also cover the full processing benchmarks for lithium and rare earths, 89% of the cobalt processing benchmark, 57% of tungsten processing and 51% of magnesium processing, and the full recycling benchmarks for lithium, cobalt and rare earths. These are estimates of potential contribution across the combined portfolio—not measured output, assured capacity or a forecast attributable to the 46 newly selected projects alone.
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What is known about project progress
The designation list should not be read as a construction or production tracker. As a point of comparison, the Commission reported on 9 October 2026 that, among the first EU cohort selected in 2025, 25 projects had completed an environmental impact assessment and 17 had received construction permits. Those figures apply to the 2025 cohort, not the 46 projects announced in 2026.
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Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →The Commission describes the selections as part of an effort to reduce supply dependencies and increase production in Europe. Its Executive Vice-President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, Stéphane Séjourné, put the approach this way: “Our approach is simple: reduce dependency and increase production in Europe.”
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Why the Commission says more supply is needed
The European Commission’s CRMA overview projects that EU demand for rare-earth metals will increase six-fold by 2030 and seven-fold by 2050 (European Commission, CRMA overview, accessed 2026). For lithium, the same overview projects a twelve-fold increase by 2030 and a twenty-one-fold increase by 2050 (European Commission, CRMA overview, accessed 2026). These are projections, not measured increases.
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