Flanders and the European Raw Materials Policy

Not only Flanders experiences great difficulties in terms of land access. Other European Member States are also facing a difficult accessibility to domestic raw materials due to an increased competition for different land uses. Moreover, the EU is highly dependent on imports of important raw materials, which are increasingly affected by market distortions. A reliable and undistorted fair access to raw materials both from within and outside the EU is increasingly important for the EU competitiveness.

Consequently, the European Commission launched the Communication “The raw materials initiative – Meeting our critical needs for growth and jobs in Europe” in November 2008. In this Communication it is proposed that the EU should agree on an integrated raw materials strategy which should be based on the following three pillars:

• ensure access to raw materials from international markets under the same conditions as other industrial competitors;
• set the right framework conditions within the EU in order to foster sustainable supply of raw materials from European sources;
• boost overall resource efficiency and promote recycling to reduce the EU’s consumption of primary raw materials and decrease the relative import dependence.

Two ad-hoc working groups were created under the umbrella of the Raw Materials Supply Group. This Raw Materials Supply Group is a stakeholder group comprising industry, environmental NGOs, trade unions, Member States, candidate countries, and the Commission. The first working group was mandated with the task to identify a list of critical raw materials for the European economy. The second working group involves identifying actions to promote the exchange of best practices in the area of minerals policy, land use planning and administrative conditions for exploration and extraction. Moreover, better networking between geological surveys with the aim of increasing the EU’s knowledge base, and the need to develop a medium to long term strategy to integrate sub-surface information into the GMES Land service, are addressed. By the end of 2010 the European Commission will publish an updated Raw Materials Initiative. This Communication is foreseen to include the state-of-the-art after two years working on an integrated EU strategy on raw materials. It will also include recommendations for a sustainable raw materials supply.

The Flemish mineral policy is to a large extent in keeping with the advice of the second working group concerning best practices. In the future, Flanders will continue to be committed to learn from best practices in other EU Member States and include them - when appropriate to the local context - in its mineral policy.