Renew Europe, which is on the forefront of critical raw material issues, considers the opening of negotiations with the U.S. on strengthening international supply chains of critical minerals to be crucial and positive. An agreement must be concluded quickly with as many minerals covered as possible. This is why we underlined in the resolution on this issue, adopted today in the INTA committee, the need to reach a deal that help us to reduce our strategic dependencies by diversifying our supply chains and which is consistent with our open strategic autonomy.
Although the U.S is a strong and close partner, with whom we share common values, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which has an impact on the competitiveness of our industries, remains a concern. Our continent has some of the highest environment standards in the world. Therefore, EU products should be able to benefit from the advantages of the IRA.
Catharina Rinzema (The Netherlands, VVD), Renew Europe standing shadow rapporteur in INTA on the EU-US relations, declared:
"An agreement on critical minerals between the EU and US is a necessary step to reduce our dependency on China for clean technologies. We need stronger cooperation with the US, our biggest strategic partner, on trade and the green transition."
Marie-Pierre Vedrenne (France, MoDem), Renew Europe shadow rapporteur on critical raw materials in International trade committee, added:
"At a time when the European Union is actively working to strengthen its sovereignty, a good agreement with the United States is most welcome. Such an agreement needs to be in line with the desire to diversify supply chains, as set out in the regulation on critical raw materials, and enable Europe to act with a reliable partner around common objectives, to reduce its existing dependencies and above all to avoid creating new ones. We also welcome that the European Parliament will have a real debate on an agreement, and must have its say on this type of agreement, which affects all Europeans".
