European Raw Materials Resilience—Turning a Blind Eye

Abstract

Europe’s almost total dependence on foreign suppliers of metals impacts negatively on the continent’s balance of trade, opens the region to potentially damaging supply problems, allows foreign actors to place political demands on European leaders and economies, and has a considerable negative environmental impact in many parts of the world. Europe has sound economic reasons, and a moral responsibility, to promote more mining in the many parts of the continent where it can be conducted in a responsible and sustainable manner.