Activities of Manuela RIPA related to 2021/2011(INI)
Shadow opinions (1)
OPINION on a European strategy for critical raw materials
Amendments (11)
Amendment 7 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Welcomes the new EU Action Plan on Critical Raw Materials and stresses that EU trade policy can play a key role as a vehicle for improving EU access to these materials; notes that the COVID-19 outbreak has exposed the lack of resilience of global value chains for certain key products, showing the need for more sustainable, robust and resilient supply chains for critical raw materials; underlines that sustainability requirements regarding the extraction of raw materials should be a precondition to trade and investment in those materials;
Amendment 15 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Notes that demand for raw materials is projected to double by 2050 and that the EU is highly reliant on non-EU countries for critical raw materials, making increased resource efficiency and diversified sourcing essential to increase the EU’s security of supply; calls, therefore, on the Commission to diversify the supply sources of critical raw materials as much as possible, and reduce current reliance on a few countries; emphasizes that the extraction of raw materials is significantly harmful for the environment; and therefore that the reliance on consumption of raw materials must be reduced and the EU circular economy enhanced by boosting resource efficiency, scaling-up recycling of primary and secondary raw materials, fostering circular supply chains, advancing end-of-life value chains and by substituting and reducing the use of critical raw materials within value chains; stresses the growing concern that the increased demand of critical raw materials may lead to potential tension with non-EU producer countries, due to environmental and social risks, including stranded assets and higher costs of environmental action; calls on the Commission to focus also on securing supplies by establishing strategic stocks and appropriate stockpiling of critical raw materials in Europe, particularlyalso in light of the uncertainties linked to the evolution of the geopolitical situation worldwide and the potential trade tensions with rich non- EU producer countries; ;
Amendment 30 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Underlines that global value chains, and in particular critical raw materials value chains, are impacted by detrimental effects of natural or man- made hazards, and stresses that the frequency and impact of those hazards is likely to increase in the future, and being transmitted to different world regions, leading to a subsequent increase of macroeconomic volatility as well as market and trade uncertainty; emphasizes that the environmental and social costs of highly fragmented global value chains using critical raw materials and just-in- time production models are not factored into the prices of these products and thus, result in market failures that could further impact trade relations between the EU and third countries;
Amendment 35 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 b (new)
Paragraph 2 b (new)
2b. Stresses the risks in critical supply chains made apparent by the COVID-19 crisis and calls on the Commission to adopt an EU Sustainable Supply Chain Strategy as a follow-up of the EU Industrial Strategy identifying supply chains built on critical raw materials for which resilience and sustainability would be increased by supply diversification, reshoring and stockpiling; supports the inclusion of reporting provisions required for that analysis in the context of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive;
Amendment 37 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 c (new)
Paragraph 2 c (new)
2c. Calls for establishing a legal EU framework in the context of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive to subject companies largely exposed to international supply chains to undertake regular 'resilience stress tests' that would map, assess and provide potential responses to their supply chain risks, including externalities as well as social, environmental and political risks;
Amendment 41 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Underlines that future EU free trade agreements (FTAs) should include a specific focus on raw materials; calls on the Commission to further enhance the enforcement of FTAis of the opinion that specific, sanctionable and targeted sustainability requirements should be integrated in Energy and Raw Materials FTA’s chapters, including inter alia, transparency, participatory requirements, traceability and responsible sourcing requirements; calls on the Commission to further enhance the monitoring, enforcement and inclusiveness of FTAs, including TSD chapters to ensure that commitments and obligations on sourcing of critical raw materials are met by trading partnersdefined and met; calls on the Commission to strengthen cooperation on sustainable sourcing of raw materials with third countries under existing EU policies and instruments, including enlargement, neighbourhood, development and cooperation policies;
Amendment 47 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 b (new)
Paragraph 3 b (new)
3b. Welcomes that the Commission is committed to carry out an ex-post evaluation of the impact of the EU agreements on key environmental aspects, including on climate change; calls for a concrete timeline and stresses that the evaluations should, when necessary, lead to a review of existing agreements in order to address their identified negative impacts; stresses the role of ex-ante, intermediate and ex-post specific impact assessment as regards trade flows on critical raw materials that are facilitated by FTAs;
Amendment 51 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 d (new)
Paragraph 3 d (new)
3d. Calls on the Commission to advance in our relations with partners countries for a global circular economy by proposing a Global Circular Economy Alliance, to bring forward an international agreement on the management of natural resources, and to launch a discussion at the WTO on the constraints posed by the prohibition of local content requirement on the scale-up of a circular economy, to build a stronger partnership with different world regions, in particular with Africa, and to ensure that Free Trade Agreements reflect the enhanced objectives of the circular economy;
Amendment 53 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 e (new)
Paragraph 3 e (new)
3e. Underlines that stronger controls for EU exports of key critical raw material waste streams, including electronics waste, batteries, and end-of-life vehicles, as well as, hazardous waste coming from resource extraction, are needed to avoid pollution from informal recycling in developing countries, and to establish a level playing field for recycling operators meeting the necessary standards for safe and efficient recovery;
Amendment 62 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 f (new)
Paragraph 3 f (new)
Amendment 66 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Underlines that a fully functioning rules-based multilateral trading system is also key to ensuring opensustainable trade flows of critical raw materials in consistency with the European Green Deal; renews its call on the Commission, in this regard, to pursue its efforts for the modernisation, strengthening and substantial reactivation of the World Trade Organization to fight distortions of international trade and guarantee effective competition worldwide;