“Lengthy and complex licensing creates a bottleneck for mining exploration in the European Union” and Portugal is one of the worst cases, one of the longest in approving projects, such as lithium exploration in Trás-os-Montes or Alto Minho, to extract “critical raw materials”, thus contributing to the European Union being in danger of “not having anything to feed renewable energy”, accuses the European Court of Auditors (TCE), in a study released this Monday.
The Luxembourg-based auditor states that “as early as 2008, the Raw Materials Initiative noted that it was very difficult to advance new critical raw materials projects quickly into the operational phase, particularly due to the length of national licensing procedures.”
“More recently, the 2023 impact assessment of the Critical Raw Materials Regulation concluded that licensing procedures were unpredictable and fragmented” and that “the time required to obtain a mining authorization varied between three months and three years.”
The TCE criticizes the delay, especially “in some more anomalous cases, such as Finland and Portugal”, where the licensing in question is taking “up to four years”.
“The delays caused by challenging, in court, the licenses granted were also highlighted as a significant bottleneck.”
According to the panel of judges, “in their responses to the Court’s survey, almost half of the Member States point to environmental and social considerations (namely, pollution and people’s opposition to activities too close to their homes) as the main obstacle to increasing extraction in the EU”.
“Six Member States indicated that bottlenecks result both from insufficient administrative capacities in the public sector (for example, to grant mining licenses) and from circumstances linked to nature protection (especially in the context of the Water Framework Directive and the Natura 2000 Directives)”, adds the ECA.
The auditor insists that “the EU’s transition to renewable energy depends heavily on technical equipment, such as batteries, wind turbines and solar panels” and that “to make them, critical raw materials are needed, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper and rare earths”.
“Currently, the majority of these materials are concentrated in a single country outside the EU or in a few of them, such as China, Turkey and Chile”, lists the same European institution.
“Without critical raw materials, there is no energy transition, competitiveness or strategic autonomy. Unfortunately, today we are dangerously dependent on a small number of outside countries to obtain these materials”, laments Keit Pentus-Rosimannus, Member of the ECA responsible for the audit. Therefore, it is essential that the EU raises the bar and reduces its exposure in this area”, recommends the person in charge.
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