EU and Australia sign MoU to cooperate on critical minerals

The European Union and Australia signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on 28 May 2024 to cooperate on critical and strategic minerals.

This MOU comes at a time as the EU tries to diversify its suppliers away from China and Russia and transform its economy to reduce CO2 emissions.

The agreement covers exploration, extraction, processing, refining, recycling, and processing of extractive waste

"Australia is ... a global leader when it comes to critical raw materials," EU Commission Vic President Valdis Dombrovskis said in a statement.

It calls for co-operation on environmental, social and governance issues, includingaligning international mineral pricing with high ESG standards, strengtheningsupply chain transparency and promoting market recognition for high ESGstandards.

This arrives at an important time, on the same week as the EU CRM Act went live designating EU strategic projects with a capacity to extract, process and recycle strategic raw materials and diversify EU supplies from third countries.

Projects in Australia may qualify as strategic if they assist the EU with the regulation that no more than 65% of the EU’s annual consumption of a strategic raw material can be imported from a third country outside the EU.

The EU signed similar agreements with Canada and Ukraine in 2021, Kazakhstan and Namibia in 2022, with Argentina, Chile, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Greenland in 2023 and with Rwanda, Norway and Uzbekistan earlier this year.