The EU has unveiled further plans to de-couple from reliance on China for rare earths, adding two new measures to a list it made earlier this year. The announcement comes just one day after China approved its first batch of general rare earth export permits, and as economies around the world are looking for ways to offset the monopoly China enjoys over the sector.
The first measure is the creation of a commission to coordinate responses in the face of economic threats. The second is a ban on the export from the EU of scrap rare earth materials, a move which it says could meet up to 20% of EU demand. But decoupling from China’s grip on rare earths is not that simple. China has the advantage of having most of the world’s rare earth mines and even more of the refining capacity, and if the world wants to offset that, it will have to invest hugely in alternatives.