{"id":677810,"date":"2026-01-06T14:04:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T14:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/677810\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T14:04:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T14:04:22","slug":"the-securitization-of-minerals-in-the-eu-why-europe-is-not-immune-to-the-resource-curse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/677810\/","title":{"rendered":"The Securitization of Minerals in the EU: Why Europe is Not Immune to the Resource Curse"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Originally published in Spanish in\u00a0issue #171<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0Papeles\u00a0magazine. Translated by the author.)<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/p>\n

The European Union, with a population of about 450 million, represents roughly 5% of the global population but consumes almost 20% of the world\u2019s mineral resources\u2014four times more per capita than the world average. Far from narrowing, this gap is widening with the expansion of renewable energy systems, the electrification of private vehicle fleets, digitalization, and increasingly excessive consumption.<\/p>\n

The refusal to align consumption with planetary boundaries, with principles of equity and justice between the Global North and South, and with the rights of future generations has fuelled a new form of\u00a0green imperialism. This new neo-colonial patterns seeks to ensure, by all means, the continued flow of raw materials from the Global South and European peripheries to the main centres of production and consumption.<\/p>\n

Until 2022 this dynamic had been largely legitimized under the guise of decarbonisation\u2014framed as the transition away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy systems. In recent years, however, the narrative has taken on\u00a0olive-green\u00a0tones, increasingly tying mineral supply to militarization and rearmament.<\/p>\n

\"Papeles<\/p>\n

Papeles de relaciones internacionales y cambio global, n. 171. November 2025<\/p>\n

This vision rests on the assumption that natural resources are inexhaustible and that economic growth can be limitless. Yet the material reality is quite different: global mineral reserves are insufficient to sustain projected levels of consumption. As Simon Michaux warned in his 2021 report\u00a0The Mining of Minerals and the Limits to Growth<\/a>, copper demand alone\u2014essential to electrification\u2014would require extracting as much copper in the next 30 years as has been mined in the past 7,000. At the same time, ore grades have plummeted: from 10\u201320% in the late 19th century, to 2% in the 1930s, and below 0.5% today. This means new mines have unprecedented impacts, generating massive waste, using risky low-cost extraction methods, and expanding into pristine environments.<\/p>\n

This article examines how access to mineral raw materials in the EU has been transformed through a process of\u00a0securitization\u00a0over the last two decades. What was once mainly a matter of economic policy and trade has been reframed\u2014through narratives constructed by industrial lobbies and political allies\u2014as an existential issue for European security and survival.<\/p>\n

In the short term, securitization allows to secure the strategic goals of those who have driven the process: removal of environmental limitations, faster permitting, easier financing, and privileged access to minerals for \u201cstrategic\u201d industries such as energy, automotive, aerospace, and defence.<\/p>\n

But it has also opened the\u00a0resource curse[1]\u00a0Pandora\u2019s box within the EU, with its associated early signs of democratic erosion: restrictions on access to environmental information under national security exceptions or campaigns to delegitimize local communities and environmental groups opposing mining by portraying them as enemies of society\u2014paving the way for application of the \u201cCriminal Law of the Enemy\u201d (Feindstrafrecht).[2]<\/p>\n

What Is Securitization?<\/p>\n

Securitization is a concept developed in the post\u2014Cold War era to explain how political, social, or environmental issues can be transformed into matters of national security\u2014framed as existential threats requiring extraordinary measures. The purpose of this process, carried out through the construction of new narratives (often with little or no factual basis), is to legitimize exceptional actions and secure the material and financial resources required to implement them.<\/p>\n

The concept was coined in the early 1990s by Ole W\u00e6ver[3]\u00a0of the constructivist Copenhagen School. W\u00e6ver described how securitization enables elites to take absolute control of an issue, shifting it from conventional politics into the realm of emergency politics. The process begins with a\u00a0speech act\u2014the declaration of an issue as an existential threat. It succeeds when the discourse is widely accepted by political institutions and society.<\/p>\n

Securitization measures often include suspending fundamental rights, reallocating budgets, or implementing emergency measures. They may be temporary, or the issue may become permanently integrated into the security domain. Some securitization attempts fail, remaining rhetorical. Others\u2014such as immigration, \u201cecoterrorism\u201d, or minority rights\u2014have succeeded. In certain contexts, like Russia or the United States, securitization has spread across multiple areas of public life.<\/p>\n

It is crucial to note that securitized issues are not necessarily objective threats: they may not represent real existential dangers, even if constructed as such. As Thierry Balzacq[4]\u00a0explains, securitization\u2019s success depends less on the reality of a threat than on the discursive power of political and private actors to frame it as such. Access to minerals in the EU is a paradigmatic case of successful securitization.<\/p>\n

Tracing the Security Narrative in the EU\u2019s Raw Materials Policy<\/p>\n

Until the late 2000s, access to mineral raw materials was considered an economic and trade matter within the broader EU neoliberal framework. But as global metal prices rose sharply in the mid-2000s\u2014prices had collapsed in the late 1980s\u2014the EU and mining lobbies began reframing supply as a security issue.<\/p>\n

In 2008, the European Commission and the mining lobby launched the\u00a0Raw Materials Initiative, which for the next decade drove the transformation of mineral supply into a matter of European security. The process was spearheaded by the newly created Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) and the mining and minerals-intensive industries lobbies.\u00a0The Commission\u2019s 2008 Communication<\/a>\u00a0introduced the concept of\u00a0security of supply\u00a0and insisted that \u201csecure access to non-energy raw materials should be fully taken into account in the European Security Strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2011, another Communication<\/a>\u00a0defined the concept of\u00a0critical raw materials\u00a0and created a list of 14 materials (expanded to 30 by 2020). In 2020 the\u00a0European Raw Materials Alliance<\/a>\u00a0is launched through a\u00a0new Communication<\/a>. This public\u2013private coalition now explicitly pursued a securitization agenda and, for the first time, identified \u201cpublic acceptance\u201d of mining as a key challenge, pinpointing the need to address social opposition\u2014affected communities, environmental groups, etc.\u2014within a security framework.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Image from the cover of the 2020 report\u00a0Critical Raw Materials for Strategic Technologies and Sectors in the EU \u2013 A Foresight Study<\/a><\/p>\n

In parallel, the increasingly widespread use of the term \u201ccritical minerals\u201d\u2014a political designation that is at the core of the securitization process\u2014evidences how deeply the security narrative slowly penetrated public debate. In parallel, \u201ccriticality\u201d has increasingly shifted from the initial pretence of justifying the need for more mining as an enabler for the \u201cgreen transition\u201d to an explicit connection of minerals with defence industries.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 accelerated the process, culminating in the EU\u2019s 2024 Critical Raw Materials Regulation. This regulation designated \u201cEuropean Strategic Projects,\u201d granting them overriding public interest status, exemptions from basic EU environmental principles (e.g., the Water Framework Directive\u2019s \u201cno deterioration\u201d rule and specific protections under the Habitats and Birds Directives), accelerated permitting (max. 27 months), and granted privileged access to funding.<\/p>\n

In March 2025, the EU published its first list of 47 strategic projects within the EU, followed by 13 projects outside the EU. Many of the selected projects have consistent track records of poor social and environmental practices and human rights violations. While EU member-states had veto power for domestic projects, no such provision applied to projects in third countries, imposed in a neo-colonial manner.<\/p>\n

The Commission\u2019s Communications on raw materials reveal a growing emphasis on \u201csecurity\u201d: 5 mentions in 2008, 16 in 2011, 18 in 2020 (including in the title\u00a0A Pathway Towards Greater Security and Sustainability), and 46 in the 2024 regulation. Internal industry challenges\u2014long permitting times, speculative financing, social opposition\u2014were reframed as existential security threats, while global competition and price volatility were cast as strategic risks. These concerns were elevated into the core of EU security and defence architecture and have become part of mostly accepted narrative.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Strategic mining projects within the EU, as announced in March 2025. Source: European Commission.<\/p>\n

From Rhetoric to Emergency Politics: Examples of Democratic Backsliding<\/p>\n

This section will address examples of the erosion of the rule of law associated with the securitization of mineral raw materials in the EU. In particular, it will show how the institutionalization of this narrative has opened the door to emergency politics that openly undermine previously consolidated environmental rights\u2014such as access to environmental information\u2014and reinforce a logic of\u00a0enemization, that is, attributing negative traits to third parties in order to socially delegitimize them. This logic targets individuals, communities, and organizations that exercise active environmental citizenship in response to harmful and\/or illegal mining projects.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

View of the Las Cruces copper mine in Gerena, Seville. Photo: Pablo Ru\u00edz Velasco. Source: Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n

In March 2025, the Commission designated 47 strategic projects through a secretive process without public participation. Some involved companies with criminal convictions for environmental offenses\u2014such as Cobre Las Cruces and La Parrilla, both in Spain. Several civil society groups requested information under the Aarhus Convention\u2014a landmark international treaty ensuring public access to environmental information incorporated into EU and member-state\u2019s laws.<\/p>\n

Between May and July 2025, the European Commission systematically denied these requests, citing Article 4.1(a)2 of Regulation 1049\/2001, which allows exceptions when subjects relate to military and defence matters\u2014the first such use in an environmental context. For example, in response to a request for documents on the designation of the\u00a0Doade lithium mine in Galicia<\/a>, Spain, the Commission claimed that the disclosure of the 15 documents that made up the company\u2019s application \u201cwould undermine the protection of the EU\u2019s public interest as regards the defence and military matters\u201d. The Director General of DG GROW further stated that:<\/p>\n

\n

Making the requested documents accessible\u00a0erga omnes\u00a0including to global competitors could jeopardise the public interest of the European Union. It would compromise the EU\u2019s defence and military strategy on lithium used for this purpose. Furthermore, it would negatively impact the economic policy objectives on lithium which are relevant for strategic industries such as renewable energy and e-mobility.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A similar request to the Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition, regarding the reports it had issued on the 6 strategic projects that were finally designated in that country, received a matching response. In that case, the Spanish Director General for Energy Policy and Mines argued that providing access to its report would compromise \u201cpublic security\u201d:<\/p>\n

\n

In the current context of global competition, and given the European Union\u2019s efforts to achieve strategic autonomy in critical raw materials, the disclosure of information related to Strategic Projects could compromise the public security interests of the European Union and its Member States.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The infringement of rights such as the right to access environmental information is, in fact, symptomatic of an underlying logic: the enemization of those who oppose certain extractive projects, even when such projects are illegal or have been condemned for environmental crimes. This represents merely the first step in the application of the \u201cCriminal Law of the Enemy\u201d (Feindstrafrecht), whereby certain individuals or organizations are deemed enemies of the state and society, their rights and legal protections are rendered suspendable, and any method for their neutralization is considered legitimate. The application of this logic to environmental activism is expanding, as examples of labelling \u201cradical environmentalism\u201d as terrorism illustrates.<\/p>\n

Yet, once again, this development reflects industrial concerns rather than actual threats. Whereas in the past the opening of new mines was primarily determined by economic and geological criteria, today it is increasingly conditioned by social factors, euphemistically referred to by mining companies as \u201csocial accessibility to resources\u201d or \u201csocial license to operate\u201d (SLO). Obtaining such a\u00a0license essentially involves undermining any expression of active citizenship\u2014for example, ensuring that individuals or community groups do not report environmental violations or corruption, or that workers tolerate breaches of labour rights. Failure to conform to corporate and government expectations often results in the pathologisation of individuals or communities as afflicted by NIMBY\u00a0Syndrome\u00a0implying irrational and\/or selfish behaviour as a means to delegitimize concerns or allegations contrary to corporate interests.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Poster calling for a demonstration against the lithium mines in Europe. Source: Doade non \u00e9 unha mina (Doade is not a mine).<\/p>\n

Strategies to secure a \u201csocial license\u201d encompass a wide range of tactics that may be lawful (e.g., greenwashing or sponsorships) or unlawful (e.g., physical attacks or threats), short- or long-term, and implemented by companies, governmental bodies, or both in concert. While companies may classify some of these methods under\u00a0corporate social responsibility, the underlying theoretical framework is that of\u00a0social engineering, aimed at changing or influencing societal attitudes at the population level\u2014in this case, promoting the acceptability of mining and its adverse impacts. More broadly, the set of tactics employed to minimize, demobilize, or destroy social opposition has been termed \u201ccorporate counterinsurgency\u201d or \u201csoft counterinsurgency,\u201d[5]\u00a0encompassing anything from apparently lawful actions\u2014such as proselytism in schools, guided visits to mine sites, or charitable activities\u2014to direct attacks and threats, (SLAPPs, lawfare, or the use of security forces to intimidate or criminalize land defenders.<\/p>\n

In 2021, the European Commission published its\u00a03rd Raw Materials Scoreboard<\/a>, noting the need for a sustained effort to \u201c[c]hanging public opposition to passive tolerance or active support,\u201d [emphasis added] and highlighting that strategies such as public relations campaigns or the use of cultural heritage (e.g., mining museums) can contribute to fostering a favourable public opinion. This objective was elevated to a standard of direct applicability across the EU through the 2024 Regulation on Critical Raw Materials, which supports the establishment of measures to \u201cfacilitate social acceptability.\u201d At the European level, this has translated into the investment of over \u20ac180 million of Horizon public funds in at least 25 projects aimed at enhancing social engineering techniques, many involving interventions in mining operations with a long track record of environmental violations (i.e., AGEMERA, CROCODILE, MINE.THE.GAP, MIREU, NEMO, NEXT, SUMEX, TARANTULA, VECTOR, etc.).<\/p>\n

An example of constructing such narratives can be found in the film\u00a0Not in My Country\u00a0<\/a>by Peter Tom Jones, which attempts to portray opposition to Riotinto\u2019s lithium mining project in Jadar (Serbia) as a disinformation movement controlled by foreign agents (i.e., controlled by Russia, China). Another work by the same author funded by EU projects LITHOS and EXCEED,\u00a0Europe\u2019s Lithium Paradox, depicts local opposition to the proposed \u201cMina do Barroso\u201d lithium mine in Portugal as a violent minority intimidating the silent majority.<\/p>\n

The European securitization process has had a cascading effect on numerous policies reflecting this new narrative. For instance, in Galicia, Spain, a\u00a02030 Sustainable Mining Agenda<\/a>, approved by the Regional Government in 2024, repeatedly identifies \u201cradical environmentalism\u201d (the same term used by\u00a0Spain\u2019s Attorney General\u2019s Office<\/a>\u00a0in its 2022 Annual report) or the \u201cstrong activism of environmental associations\u201d as threats, criticizing the existence of \u201csocial mobilization promoted by groups whose interests differ significantly from local and environmental interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Slippery Slope of the Resource Curse<\/p>\n

Far from delivering broad benefits, mining has often exemplified the resource curse bringing political instability, authoritarianism, criminalization of dissent, corruption, community conflicts, and asymmetries of power between corporations and citizens.<\/p>\n

Europe long believed itself immune from these dynamics, widespread in the Global South where communities suffer both ecological devastation, human rights violations and poor governance. Yet securitization in the EU has blurred the line between corporate and public interests. The fall of Portuguese Prime Minister Ant\u00f3nio Costa in 2023, linked to corruption in lithium projects under\u00a0Operation Influencer, illustrates how corruption is already surfacing in parallel to the State\u2019s growing lack of transparency and openness, as a recent Decision by the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee indicates.<\/p>\n

Accelerating permits at the cost of public participation, undermining environmental rights, delegitimizing defenders, and funnelling billions into mining companies risks putting the EU on a slippery slope toward autocratisation and irreversible rule-of-law erosion. Combined with the rise of authoritarian, populist, and anti-environmental politics, mineral securitization opens up prospects for a bleak future\u2014where Europe may face the same destructive dynamics of the resource curse that it has contribute to generate for the past century in much of the Global South.<\/p>\n

Notas<\/p>\n

[1]Richard M. Auty,\u00a0Sustaining Development in Mineral Economies: The Resource Curse Thesis, Routledge, London, 1993<\/p>\n

[2]G\u00fcnther Jakobs, \u00abKriminalisierung im Vorfeld einer Rechtsgutsverletzung\u00bb,\u00a0Zeitschrift f\u00fcr die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft, n\u00fam. 97(4), 1985, pp. 751-785.<\/p>\n

[3]Ole W\u00e6ver, \u00abSecuritization and Desecuritization\u00bb en Ronnie D. Lipschutz (ed.),\u00a0On Security, Columbia University Press, Nueva York, 1995.<\/p>\n

[4]Balzacq, Thierry (2005). \u00abThe Three Faces of Securitization: Political Agency, Audience and Context\u00bb.\u00a0European Journal of International Relations. 11 (2): 171\u2013201.<\/p>\n

[5]Brock, Andrea, and Alexander Dunlap. \u00abNormalising Corporate Counterinsurgency: Engineering Consent, Managing Resistance and Greening Destruction around the Hambach Coal Mine and Beyond\u00bb.\u00a0Political Geography, vol. 62, 2018, pp. 33\u201347.<\/p>\n

Teaser image credit: View of the Las Cruces copper mine in Gerena, Seville. Photo: Pablo Ru\u00edz Velasco. Source: Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Originally published in Spanish in\u00a0issue #171\u00a0of\u00a0Papeles\u00a0magazine. Translated by the author.) Introduction The European Union, with a population of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,1699],"class_list":{"0":"post-677810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-european-union"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115848535506469360","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}