CEN and CENELEC welcome the European Commission‘s proposal for the Critical Raw Materials Act, published 16 March 2023 and the aim to reinforce EU monitoring capacities and strengthen both the EU value chain (through the identification of mineral resources and raw materials projects in the EU's strategic interest, with strong environmental protection) and the EU external policies on CRMs. The CRMA has provided several references to the of use European Standards, how to make the relationship with international standards and what resources can be allocated to support these activities.
In this paper, CEN and CENELEC would like to:
- encourage the EC to boost standardization activities in critical raw materials and to work with CEN and CENELEC to develop these European standards;
- agree on a joint Action Plan supporting necessary standardization activities, especially in consideration to international standards;
- encourage the increase of FTEs proposed by the EC for the implementation of the CRMA;
- provide a background on current standardization activities;
- make the link between the High Level Forum CRM priority topic and the CRMA;
- request that harmonized standards be used as the primary route for standardization and that delegated acts remain a fall back solution.
