The European Commission selected 46 additional Strategic Projects across 16 EU Member States in its 2026 selection under the Critical Raw Materials Act, the EU framework for the designations. Combined with the first list selected in 2025, the new group brings the number of projects designated inside the EU to 93.
The latest selection covers 15 of the EU’s 17 strategic raw materials. It includes eight extraction projects, 11 processing projects, 19 recycling projects and eight projects integrating more than one value-chain stage. The group is weighted toward processing and recycling rather than extraction-only projects.
The Commission’s rationale for backing projects across the supply chain is that extraction capacity alone will not resolve dependency if concentrates, intermediate chemicals, refined metals or recycled feedstocks still have to be processed elsewhere. The projects include battery-chain materials such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite. Tungsten and magnesium projects are intended to support aerospace and defence needs, while rare-earth projects target permanent-magnet production.
Projects target 2030 supply benchmarks
The Strategic Project mechanism is designed to help the EU meet its 2030 benchmarks: sourcing at least 10% of annual strategic-material consumption from EU extraction, 40% from EU processing and 25% from EU recycling. The targets set separate thresholds for supply from within the bloc at different stages of the value chain.
The Commission said the combined project pipeline, including the 2025 list and the latest selection, could fully meet extraction benchmarks for several materials and substantially improve coverage of the processing and recycling benchmarks.
Delivery and financing remain in focus
Among the projects selected in 2025, 25 had completed environmental impact assessments and 17 had obtained construction permits. The new selection adds projects across extraction, processing and recycling, but the facts provided do not specify their individual permitting or development stages.
Team Europe has mobilised more than 2 billion euros in financial support since the RESourceEU push. The Raw Materials Mechanism is being used to match supply and demand and support potential offtake relationships between producers and buyers.
The main implementation risk has shifted from identifying projects to delivering them. Strategic status can accelerate permitting and improve project visibility with lenders and offtakers, but it does not remove engineering risk, community-acceptance issues, financing gaps or weak commodity economics. The next phase will be judged by how many designated projects reach final investment decision, construction, commissioning and sustained commercial production.
