China’s growing dominance of the battery and rare earth minerals production and supply chain has been an ongoing threat to Europe, as it significantly contributes to China’s electric vehicle sector and makes the continent, and indeed other parts of the world, heavily dependent upon China for these metals and minerals.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which prompted a whole raft of EU sanctions on Russian oil and gas, made policymakers realise just how dependent the EU has been on Moscow for energy and sent them scrambling to find more diverse suppliers.

As such, the European Commission is now hoping to avoid a similar situation with lithium and other rare earth minerals, which are vital for the green transition. Reviving the European mining sector, therefore, has now become more important than ever.