Critical raw materials and rare earths under the Defence lens. Here are Italy's moves
The indications contained in the Position paper 'For a national security strategy' promoted by the Associazione Futuri probabili and the Fondazione Leonardo Civiltà delle macchine
by Andrea Carli
5' min read
Key points
5' min read
The issue is strategic in terms of security. Minister Guido Crosetto has repeatedly emphasised the impact that critical raw materials and rare earths have on the defence supply chain, and thus on costs. At a time when NATO is pressing its allies to reach the fateful threshold of 2% of GDP for defence spending, the dossier is anything but irrelevant.
Crosetto is aware of this. 'Apart from wars,' he said last month, during a speech at the Made in Italy Summit, 'competition is increasing and Europe is living a crazy dependence, it is 100% dependent on China on rare earths. Some production has to go back to the places where it was lost, this changes geopolitics. Most raw materials are in the south of the world, the relationship between states is changing, technology but also natural resources will count,' he added.
Loading...
Again: at the 'European air and missile defence conference', which took place in Rome on 17 September, the minister dwelt on 'what lies at the heart of production: which are the supply chains, which are the technological and industrial capabilities, those that we have outsourced and perhaps moved to Asia because they cost less, which are the supply chains of raw materials. We,' he said at the time, 'are 90% dependent on China for rare earths. For lithium 78% as Europe. So to ask ourselves the question of European defence is to ask ourselves the question of when the Sevarstels will come out, when the Samp/T battery will be ready, but also to ask ourselves the problem of where to locate the lithium reserves for the next thirty years, of how to think of supplying ourselves with rare earths in the next thirty years, of how to think of exploiting the deposits of the future at a European level, not a national level, which are the submarine ones, where a single deposit has perhaps 7,000 times all the material that there is on the entire earth. How to exploit space from this point of view. These are the challenges of the future'.
The Studio
.In order to understand the scope of the issue, it is useful to take up a few passages from the Position paper entitled 'For a national security strategy', presented on Friday 8 November in the Chamber of Deputies of the Chamber of Deputies, in the presence of the minister himself. The focus, promoted by the Associazione Futuri probabili and the Fondazione Leonardo Civiltà delle macchine, both chaired by Luciano Violante, devotes a few pages to this topic.
Critical raw materials
.Access to critical raw materials, the document explains, is considered essential for the EU economy and the functioning of the internal market. Critical raw materials' are defined as those non-energy and non-agricultural raw materials that are of great economic importance and are exposed to a high supply risk, often caused by a high concentration of supply in a few third countries. The most recent statistics," the report goes on to remind us, "show that demand for MPCs is set to increase exponentially in the coming decades, in light of their fundamental role in the realisation of the technologies required for the dual green and digital transition and their essential use in the defence and aerospace sectors.
Brand connect
Loading...
