Iris Ferguson is a global adviser to Loom and a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Arctic and global resilience. Ann Mettler is a distinguished visiting fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and a former director general of the European Commission. After much pressure, European leaders delayed a decision this week amid division on whether to tighten market access through a “Made in Europe” mandate and redouble efforts to reduce the bloc’s strategic dependencies — particularly on China. This decision may appear technocratic, but the hold-up signals its importance and reflects a larger strategic reality shared across the Atlantic. Security, industry and energy have all fused into a single race to control the systems that power modern economies and militaries. And increasingly, success will hinge on whether the U.S. and Europe can confront this reality together, starting with the one domain that’s shaping every other: energy. While traditional defense spending still grabs headlines, today’s battlefield is being reshaped just as profoundly by energy flows and critical inputs. Advanced batteries for drones, portable power for forward-deployed units and mineral supply chains for next-generation platforms — these all point to the simple truth that technological and operational superiority increasingly depends on who controls the next generation of energy systems. But as Europe and the U.S. look to maintain their edge, they must rethink not just how they produce and move energy, but how to secure the industrial base behind it. Energy sovereignty now sits at the center of our shared security, and in a world where adversaries can weaponize supply chains just as easily as airspace or sea lanes, the future will belong to those who build energy systems that are resilient and interoperable by design. The Pentagon already understands this. It has tested distributed power to shorten vulnerable fuel lines in war games across the Indo-Pacific; it has watched closely how mobile generation units keep the grid alive under Russian attack in Ukraine; and it is exploring ways to deliver energy without relying on exposed logistics via new research on solar power beaming. Each of these cases clearly demonstrates that strategic endurance now depends on energy agility and security. But currently, many of these systems depend on materials and manufacturing chains that are dominated by a strategic rival: From batteries and magnets to rare earth processing, China controls our critical inputs. This isn’t just an economic liability, it’s a national security vulnerability for both Europe and the U.S. We’re essentially building the infrastructure of the future with components that could be withheld, surveilled or compromised. That risk isn’t theoretical. China’s recent export controls on key minerals are already disrupting defense and energy manufacturers — a sharp reminder of how supply chain leverage can be a form of coercion, and of our reliance on a fragile ecosystem for the very technologies meant to make us more independent. So, how do we modernize our energy systems without deepening these unnecessary dependencies and build trusted interdependence among allies instead? The solution starts with a shift in mindset that must then translate into decisive policy action. Simply put, as a matter of urgency, energy and tech resilience must be treated as shared infrastructure, cutting across agencies, sectors and alliances. Defense procurement can be a catalyst here. For example, investing in dual-use technologies like advanced batteries, hardened micro-grids and distributed generation would serve both military needs and broader resilience. These aren’t just “green” tools — they’re strategic assets that improve mission effectiveness, while also insulating us from coercion. And done right, such investment can strengthen defense, accelerate innovation and also help drive down costs. Next, we need to build new coalitions for critical minerals, batteries, trusted manufacturing and cyber-secure infrastructure. Just as NATO was built for collective defense, we now need economic and technological alliances that ensure shared strategic autonomy. Both the upcoming White House initiative to strengthen the supply chain for artificial intelligence technology and the recently announced RESourceEU initiative to secure raw materials illustrate how partners are already beginning to rewire systems for resilience. Germany gave the bloc one such example by moving to reduce its reliance on Chinese-made wind components in favor of European suppliers. | Tan Kexing/Getty Images Finally, we must also address existing dependencies strategically and head-on. This means rethinking how and where we source key materials, including building out domestic and allied capacity in areas long neglected. Germany recently gave the bloc one such example by moving to reduce its reliance on Chinese-made wind components in favor of European suppliers. Moving forward, measures like this need EU-wide adoption. By contrast, in the U.S., strong bipartisan support for reducing reliance on China sits alongside proposals to halt domestic battery and renewable incentives, undercutting the very industries that enhance resilience and competitiveness. This is the crux of the matter. Ultimately, if Europe and the U.S. move in parallel rather than together, none of these efforts will succeed — and both will be strategically weaker as a result. The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas recently warned that we must “act united” or risk being affected by Beijing’s actions — and she’s right. With a laser focus on interoperability and cost sharing, we could build systems that operate together in a shared market of close to 800 million people. The real challenge isn’t technological, it’s organizational. Whether it be Bretton Woods, NATO or the Marshall Plan, the West has strategically built together before, anchoring economic resilience with national defense. The difference today is that the lines between economic security, energy access and defense capability are fully blurred. Sustainable, agile energy is now part of deterrence, and long-term security depends on whether the U.S. and Europe can build energy systems that reinforce and secure one another. This is a generational opportunity for transatlantic alignment; a mutually reinforcing way to safeguard economic interests in the face of systemic competition. And to lead in this new era, we must design for it — together and intentionally. Or we risk forfeiting the very advantages our alliance was built to protect.

LONDON — The U.K. will break China’s stranglehold over crucial net zero supply chains, Energy Minister Chris McDonald has pledged. McDonald, a joint minister at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Department for Business and Trade, told POLITICO he is determined to bolster domestic access to critical minerals. Critical minerals like lithium and copper are used in essential net-zero technologies such as electric vehicles and batteries, as well as defense assets like F35 fighter jets. China currently controls 90 percent of rare earth refining, according to a government critical minerals strategy published last week. McDonald said China’s dominance of mineral processing risks driving up prices for the net zero transition.  The U.K. has made a legally-binding pledge to reduce planet-damaging emissions to net zero by 2050. McDonald fears China has become a “monopoly provider” of critical minerals and that its dominant role in processing allowed China to control the costs for buyers. “We want to capture this supply chain in the U.K. as part of our industrial strategy. To do that … means, ultimately, we’re going to have to wrest control of critical minerals back into a broad group of countries, not just China,” he said. The government’s critical minerals strategy includes a target that no more than 60 percent of U.K. annual demand for critical minerals in aggregate is supplied by any one country by 2035 — including China. “So, if there is an investment from China that helps with that, then that’s great. And if it doesn’t help with that, or it sort of compounds that issue that isn’t consistent with our strategy, then we judge it on that basis ultimately,” McDonald said. Additional reporting by Graham Lanktree.

BELÉM, Brazil — The Trump administration slammed the door on clean energy. China is sending the message it’s open for business. The signs are not hard to find in the sweltering, dimly lit convention center in the Amazon where delegates from nearly 200 countries are debating the Earth’s future. China’s section of the United Nations climate summit’s main hall features 5-foot-tall poster boards boasting of the country’s battery and electrical projects, from Egypt to Indonesia to Brazil. Corporate “partners” listed on the back wall include CATL, the world’s largest manufacturer of electric car batteries. BYD, the crown jewel of China’s world-leading electric vehicle empire, is an official sponsor of the summit, as is fellow Chinese electric carmaker GWM. Even Chinese President Xi Jinping’s personal brand is on display at the U.N. gathering, known as COP30, which is scheduled to end Friday. Visitors to the Chinese pavilion can find shrink-wrapped copies of books collecting his writings and speeches. Meanwhile, the United States is absent from the summit for the first time ever, as President Donald Trump disavows any participation in addressing a climate crisis that he calls a “hoax.” That’s not just a setback for the planet, climate supporters say. They say it also symbolizes a self-inflicted economic threat, as the U.S. abandons the growing worldwide market for EVs, solar panels, wind turbines and other clean technologies — and cedes it to China. “It’s not about electric power. This is about economic power,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, one of the few prominent American politicians at the summit, during a press conference here last week. He said Trump “simply doesn’t understand how enthusiastic President Xi is today that the Trump administration is nowhere to be found at COP30.” China does not yet show any signs that it’s trying to fill the role the U.S. has sometimes played at the annual climate talks: joining with the EU in pushing for all countries to make more ambitious climate commitments. While it has publicly lamented the U.S. exit from the U.N. dialogue, China still describes itself as a developing country and has proposed only modestly ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals for its own economy. The Chinese are an undeniably major presence in Belém, however — Beijing’s 789 delegates make up the second-largest national contingent at the summit, behind the 3,805 people representing the host country, Brazil, and just ahead of Nigeria, according to an independent analysis of U.N. records. The official U.S. delegation has consisted solely of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who said the State Department set up impediments to his two-day visit that ended Saturday. Trump’s hostility to clean energy is a turnaround from former President Joe Biden’s administration, which pursued big-spending green policies — backed by protectionist tax rules that irked allies in Europe — in an attempt to compete with Chinese dominance. Some developing countries had welcomed Biden’s assertiveness, saying it offered an alternative to the onerous conditions that often come from accepting Chinese infrastructure and energy assistance. But that option is rapidly fading after Trump signed a Republican-backed law stripping away Biden’s green energy subsidies. “Most of the equipment, we are buying from China,” said an official from an East African government who was granted anonymity to avoid retribution from the Trump administration. “The market has been broken. Under Biden, people were motivated to buy things from the U.S.” Others attending the summit said they believe Trump’s policies will eventually leave the U.S. itself dependent on China as the global energy market shifts to cleaner products. That trend could hollow out the U.S. industrial core, said Nigel Topping, chair of the Climate Change Committee that advises the U.K. government. “It won’t be long before we have a queue of American governors begging BYD to set up electric car factories in the States,” Topping said. FOSSIL FUELS NOT DEAD YET Trump is articulating a starkly different vision: supplying the world’s growing energy demands with U.S. fossil fuels. He has backed up his talk with action, including using trade threats to undermine international climate agreements and pressure countries to buy more American oil and natural gas. The approach seizes on the fact that the U.S. is the world’s top oil and gas producer, a role it was already using for geopolitical advantage during the Biden era. Trump and his aides maintain that switching to green energy sources would only strengthen China’s stranglehold on wind, solar, battery, electric vehicle and rare earth supply chains. “President Trump wasted no time reversing Joe Biden’s Green New Scam, which significantly contributed to the worst inflation crisis in modern American history, drove up energy prices across the country, and stifled economic growth,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement. “By unleashing American energy, we are strengthening our grid stability, making energy affordable for families and businesses, and protecting our national security.” The White House’s stance contains an inherent bet — that the world is not on the verge of a dramatic pivot to clean energy. “You will hear people go, ‘Well, the U.S. is peddling fossil fuels, and the Chinese are pushing renewables,’” said George David Banks, an international climate aide during Trump’s first term. “Well, yeah, that’s because that’s what we have, and that’s what they have.” Trump’s vision of a future flush with fossil fuels got some validation last week from the Paris-based International Energy Agency, whose recent track record of projecting massive increases in green energy has made it a target of conservatives in Washington. The IEA’s newest forecast includes a much different scenario based on nations’ existing laws that predicts worldwide oil and gas consumption will keep growing through 2050. But the IEA report also includes an alternative scenario — accounting for policies that countries plan to adopt — which envisions a future of rising renewable energy deployment, with fossil fuel use peaking before 2030. The energy think tank Ember said Thursday that wind and solar power expanded quickly enough during the first three quarters of 2025 to meet all the world’s new power demands, and it projected that fossil fuel power generation will not increase this year for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic. A pledge that countries made at the 2023 U.N. climate summit to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 appears within reach, Ember said. Wagering the United States’ economic future on the continued dominance of fossil fuels is foolish, former Vice President Al Gore said in an interview in Belém. “It’s a tragedy that Donald Trump has shot the U.S. economy in both feet and hobbled our ability to compete more effectively with China,” Gore said, pointing to Ember’s data showing that green technology exports from China exceed the value of all fossil fuel exports from the U.S. “One sector is an appreciating asset, the other is a diminishing asset, and the U.S. is on the wrong side of that equation.” During the two days of world leaders’ speeches preceding this month’s summit, Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang took a veiled shot at Trump’s trade and clean energy policies. “China is ready to work with all parties to unswervingly promote green and low-carbon development,” he said. ‘LARGE INVESTMENTS FIRST’ The United States still has a big footprint at COP30, of course — even if the federal government doesn’t. U.S. companies such as GE Vernova, Baker Hughes, Citibank and Bank of America attended the summit, noted Marty Durbin, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute. He said those businesses will pursue clean energy projects regardless of who occupies the White House or whether the president sends anyone to the talks. “Are we winning in that race?” Durbin said before a slight pause. “We’re in the race. And we’re going to continue to be part of that.” But others said they believe Trump’s policies will leave the U.S. in the lurch. While some foreign clean energy companies have exited the U.S. as an immediate response to Trump’s policy reversals, they will avoid the country altogether in the medium and long terms “if you cannot trust in it,” said Anne Simonsen, climate policy head of the business group Danish Industry. At the same time, China is going all in. China has poured huge direct investments into building clean technology and electric vehicle factories in emerging economies. In Brazil, Chinese investment in the electricity sector last year spiked 115 percent to $1.43 billion, with 69 percent of total Chinese-backed projects consisting of green energy and sustainability, according to the Brazil-China Business Council. Rich and poor nations have benefited from Chinese oversupply to buy cut-rate gear to meet clean energy goals. That approach and Chinese investments have transformed economies, said André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, president of the COP30 summit. China “added the elements that I believe were missing” from the world’s green energy transition, Corrêa do Lago said Nov. 10 at a press conference. “One of them is scale. The other is technology. And the other is the fact that as a developing country, it needs to bring solutions that are affordable to more people.” But he acknowledged in a separate interview with POLITICO that while China’s gusher of less-expensive technology could help address climate change more quickly, relying on one supplier creates other complications. China is “indisputably” the leader in all green technology, much of which is high quality, said Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Panama’s climate envoy and chief negotiator. He said U.S. automakers are “shit-scared” that they won’t be able to catch up with Chinese models, a worry that Newsom also espoused in several public comments. As an economist by trade, Monterrey Gómez said he too worries about the world relying so much on one supplier. Still, he said he sees no major alternative at the moment. “They did fast investments, large investments first,” he said. “That’s why they’re benefiting from this.” Sara Schonhardt contributed to this report from Belém, Brazil.

Andrea Dugo is an economist at the European Centre for International Political Economy. In the late 1400s, Italy was the jewel of Europe. Venice ruled the seas; Florence dominated art and finance; and Milan led in trade and technology. No corner of the Western world was more advanced. Yet, within decades, both its political independence and economic primacy were gone. Europe today risks a similar fate. Once the envy of the world, the bloc’s lead has eroded. The EU isn’t just politically divided, it’s also falling behind in industries that will define the rest of this century. Young talent is fleeing for the U.S. and Asia, while its economy increasingly resembles an open-air museum of past achievements. Whether in growth, technology, industry or living standards, Europe is in jeopardy of becoming a province in a world defined by others. And it stands to learn from Italy’s decline. The warning signs are unmistakable: Since 2008, the EU’s GDP expanded by just 18 percent, while the U.S. grew twice as fast and China grew nearly three times bigger. Tourism across the continent is still booming, of course, but the millions chasing their Instagram-able escapes aren’t enough to offset stagnation, and also bring costs. The bloc’s fall in living standards echoes Renaissance Italy as well. Around 1450, Italy’s income per person was 50 percent higher than Holland’s. A century later, the Dutch were 15 percent richer, and by 1650, they were nearly twice as rich. Modern Europe is slipping even faster than that. In 1995, Germany’s GDP per capita was 10 percent higher than America’s, whereas today, the U.S. is 60 percent higher. At this pace, Germany’s prosperity levels could shrink to a third of its transatlantic partner’s within a generation. Much like in Renaissance Italy, this economic malaise reflects a deep technology gap. Once the queen of the seas, Venice clung to old technology and paid the price. Its galleys, superb in calm Mediterranean waters, were no match for the ocean-going caravels that carried Spain and Portugal across the world. Modern Europe is now doing the same: On artificial intelligence, the EU invests barely 4 percent of what the U.S. does. Today, OpenAI is valued at $500 billion, while Europe’s biggest AI startup Mistral is worth just $15 billion. And though it pioneered the science in quantum, Europe trails behind in commercialization — a single U.S. startup, IonQ, raised more capital than all the bloc’s quantum firms combined. Even when it comes to batteries, Sweden’s much-touted Northvolt collapsed in March, only to be snapped up by a Silicon Valley startup. Traditional industries are faltering too. Taken together, Germany’s top three carmakers are worth just an eighth of Tesla. Ericsson and Nokia, once world leaders in mobile network technology, lag behind Asian rivals in 5G. And France’s Arianespace, once dominant in satellite launches, now hitches rides on tech billionaire Elon Musk’s rockets. The problem isn’t invention, though — it’s scale. Despite its top engineers and universities, nearly 30 percent of the bloc’s unicorns have transferred to the U.S. since 2008, taking its most entrepreneurial spirits with them. It seems the continent sparks ideas, while America fuels them and profits — yet another pattern that mirrors Italy, which supplied talent as others built empires. Its greatest explorers like Columbus, Cabot, Vespucci and Verrazzano had also trained at home, only to sail under foreign flags. The prescriptions are known. Former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi detailed them in his report on the EU’s future. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images The fundamental issue in both cases is political. Like Italy’s warring city-states in the 1500s, today’s Europe is divided and feeble. Capitals quarrel over energy, debt, migration and industrial policy; a common defense strategy remains only an aspiration; and ambitious plans for joint technology spending or deeper capital markets get drowned in debate. This disunity is what doomed Italy as it fell prey to foreign powers that eventually carved up the peninsula. And the bloc’s current divisions leave it similarly vulnerable to global competitors, as Washington dictates defense; Russia menaces the continent’s east; China dominates supply chains; and Silicon Valley rules the digital economy. But is this all fated? Not necessarily. The EU has built institutions Renaissance Italy could never have dreamed of: a single market, a currency, a parliament. It still hosts world-class research institutions and excels in advanced manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, green energy and design. The continent can still lead — but only if it acts. Sixteenth-century Italy had no such chance. Geography trapped it in the Mediterranean while trade routes shifted to the Atlantic, and commerce stagnated. New naval technologies left its fleets behind, and its brightest minds sought their fortunes abroad. But Europe faces no such limit. Nothing is stopping it other than its own political timidity and fractiousness. The bloc needs to accept costs now in order to avoid the greatest of costs later: irrelevance. It needs to invest heavily in frontier technologies like AI, quantum, space and biotech, while also building real defense and creating deep capital markets so that start-ups can scale up at home. The prescriptions are known. Former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi detailed them in his report on the EU’s future. What’s missing is political will. Once Europe’s beating heart, Italy eventually became a land of visitors rather than innovators. And history’s lesson is clear: Its culture endured, but its power withered. The EU still has time to avoid that destiny. Europeans can either wake up or resign themselves to becoming a continent of monuments and echoing memories.

The European Commission will present a new plan to break the EU’s dependencies on China for critical raw materials, President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Saturday. The EU executive chief warned of “clear acceleration and escalation in the way interdependencies are leveraged and weaponized,” in a speech Saturday at the Berlin Global Dialogue. In recent months, China has tightened export controls over rare earths and other critical materials. The Asian powerhouse controls close to 70 percent of the world’s rare earths production and almost all of the refining. The EU’s response “must match the scale of the risks we face in this area,” von der Leyen said, adding that “we are focusing on finding solutions with our Chinese counterparts.” Brussels and Beijing are set to discuss the export controls issue during meetings next week. “But we are ready to use all of the instruments in our toolbox to respond if needed,” the head of the EU executive warned. This suggests that the Commission could make use of the EU’s most powerful trade weapon — the Anti-Coercion Instrument. This comes after French President Emmanuel Macron called on the EU executive to trigger the trade bazooka at a meeting of EU leaders on Thursday. His push has not met with much support from the other leaders around the table. NEW BREAKAWAY PLAN To break the EU’s over-reliance on China for critical materials imports and refining, the Commission will put forward a “RESourceEU plan,” von der Leyen said. She did not provide much detail about the plan, nor when it would be presented. But she said it would follow a similar model as the REPowerEU plan that the Commission introduced in 2022 to phase out Russian fossil fuels after Moscow’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Under REPowerEU, the Commission proposed investing €225 billion to diversify energy supply routes, accelerate the deployment of renewables, improve grids interconnections across the bloc and boost the EU hydrogen market, among other measures. The EU executive also put forward a legislative proposal, which is currently under negotiations with the European Parliament and the Council, to ban Russian gas imports by the end of 2027. The aim of RESourceEU “is to secure access to alternative sources of critical raw materials in the short, medium and long term for our European industry,” von der Leyen explained. “It starts with the circular economy. Not for environmental reasons. But to exploit the critical raw materials already contained in products sold in Europe,” she said. She added that the EU “will speed up work on critical raw materials partnerships with countries like Ukraine and Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Chile and Greenland.” “Europe cannot do things the same way anymore. We learned this lesson painfully with energy; we will not repeat it with critical materials,” von der Leyen said.

STRASBOURG — Europe should protect its share of market from global competitors’ investment in green tech, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday. Von der Leyen said European Union leaders will discuss the issue during their Thursday summit. “The clean transition is in full swing,” she said during a debate in the European Parliament, pointing out how every year, hundreds of gigawatts of energy are added globally. “Cleantech markets around the world are booming,” including batteries, wind turbines and electric cars. “The rise in cleantech in Europe is also good news for energy security, and it is a great economic opportunity,” she added. Yet, she warned, Europe in the past missed out on chances to lead on green industry, with the loss of solar panel industry to more competitive Chinese companies being “a cautionary tale that we must not forget.” “Europe was a global leader in solar, but heavily subsidized Chinese competitors started to outprice Europe’s young industry — and today, China controls 90 percent of the global market.” “This time, we should learn our lesson,” she added, name-checking the Middle East and the “Global South” as regions competing for their spot in the global industrial green tech race. The European Commission expects renewables and other forms of clean energy to supply 50 percent of energy globally, while the cleantech market is projected to grow from €600 billion to €2 trillion over the next 10 years. The EU wants to capture 15 percent of the global production of clean technologies, with the EU market growing to €375 billion by 2035, according to Commission projections.

A group of 24 European politicians whose blood was tested for toxic PFAS chemicals over the summer all had the substances in their bodies, the NGOs involved in the testing revealed Tuesday. “I tested positive for four substances, and three of them can harm unborn children, act as endocrine disruptors, cause liver damage, and are suspected of being carcinogenic,” said Danish Environment Minister Magnus Heunicke in a written statement, describing his results as a “frightening reality.” It is “crucial that we take strong action against PFAS pollution so that we are no longer continuously exposed to these harmful chemicals,” he added. PFAS substances, commonly known as forever chemicals, don’t break down naturally and have been shown to accumulate in the environment and cause a host of health problems, including cancer, liver damage and decreased fertility. Most people in the world have some level of PFAS in their blood. For half of the EU leaders tested, contamination reached levels where health impacts are possible, according to the European Environmental Bureau and ChemSec. One person had levels indicating a potential risk of long-term health effects. The test results come days after the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights Marcos Orellana slammed Brussels for proposing to dilute several chemical protection laws to help boost European industry. Denmark orchestrated the group test during a meeting of EU environment ministers in the northern Danish city of Aalborg in July. The country currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU and is one of five European countries that sent a joint proposal to the European Commission to phase out thousands of PFAS chemicals under EU chemicals law back in 2023. That proposal — currently in the hands of the European Chemicals Agency — has come under fire from industry groups, many of which are calling for exemptions to the proposed law. Tested politicians included EU Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall, outgoing French Ecological Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher and Federal German Environment Minister Carsten Schneider. “Like many other citizens across Europe, I have PFAS in my body,” said Roswall in a written statement. “I tested positively on 6 out of 13 PFAS, including some that are classified as toxic for reproductive health. PFAS pollution is a vital public health issue.” The results of one of the test participants — Executive Director of the European Environment Agency Leena Ylä-Mononen — showed a decline in PFAS levels since she last had her blood tested, “reflecting trends observed among the European population for restricted PFAS.” Roswall has stated that the Commission will propose phasing out consumer uses of PFAS and exempt certain critical industries, which are yet to be defined. PFAS are involved in the production processes of several sectors, including semiconductors, batteries and pharmaceuticals. Those promises of exemptions have worried environmental groups, which are hoping for a wide-reaching phase-out of the chemicals. In a written statement on the tests, ChemSec’s Anne-Sofie Bäckar called for a “universal ban on all PFAS — not just in consumer products — before another generation pays the price for industry’s delay.” The Commission is expected to release its revision of the major chemicals regulation, REACH, this year, although the timeline is uncertain. The EU institutions are also working on a separate Commission proposal to simplify a set of EU laws spanning cosmetics, fertilizer and chemical classification regulations in a “chemicals omnibus” bill. U.N. Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights Marcos Orellana last week said the proposal risked undermining the European Union’s credibility as a “global leader in green policy and the rule of law.”

The world order is fracturing and the European Union must turn to outer space in its search for raw materials. In short, it needs to mine the Moon. So argues the European Commission in a new report on the key threats to Europe’s security and prosperity, published Tuesday. “[T]he global order has been shaken tremendously,” the EU executive’s sixth annual Strategic Foresight Report warned, adding non-EU countries may no longer be relied upon to supply materials vital in low-carbon energy technology. “In response, there may be a growing emphasis on … advanced mining technologies including space mining, starting with the Moon,” the report said. Metals such as lithium, copper, nickel and rare earths are essential for renewable energy and electric vehicles, and very few of them are mined within the EU. The Commission is worried countries with rich reserves of these metals could team up to manipulate supply, the same way the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) manipulates oil supply. This could drive up prices and “restrict access to essential materials, posing a serious challenge to the EU’s strategic autonomy and clean energy transition,” the Commission said. HAS BRUSSELS GONE MAD? Space mining has been promoted by many government agencies, including the U.S. government’s NASA and Japan’s JAXA. In the EU, Luxembourg has positioned itself as Europe’s space mining hub, with hopes of mining the Moon and asteroids using robots. These celestial bodies are often rich in useful metals such as rare earths, aluminum, titanium, and manganese, as well as precious metals like gold and platinum. In June this year, the Commission released its Vision for the Space Economy, in which it estimated so-called space resources could be worth up to €170 billion between 2018 and 2045. Still, industrial-scale space mining remains a distant dream, and practical solutions for mining and transporting mined metals back to Earth are in their infancy. The EU has also fallen behind on establishing critical raw material supply chains and refining capacity. | Christopher Neundrof/EPA WHY IS EUROPE WORRIED? The energy transition is sending demand for critical minerals (literally) skyrocketing. To meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement, for example, the world needs to mine as much copper over the next 25 years as has been mined in the whole of human history, according to some estimates. Copper is essential in anything that uses electricity. It’s a similar story for lithium, used in EV batteries. The European Commission expects EU lithium demand for batteries to be 12 times higher in 2030 than in 2020, and 21 times higher in 2050. Currently, the EU does not mine any lithium at all. The EU’s small, densely populated landmass, comparatively strong environmental protections, and active civil society make it a difficult jurisdiction in which to develop mines, even when resources are discovered. People don’t like having mines in their backyard, as mining giant Rio Tinto’s attempt to open a lithium mine in the EU’s neighbor, Serbia, has shown. The EU has also fallen behind on establishing critical raw material supply chains and refining capacity. Meanwhile, forward-thinking China has established a stranglehold on critical raw material supply chains, refining 40 percent of the world’s copper, 60 percent of its lithium, 70 percent of its cobalt, and nearly 100 percent of its graphite, according to a report last year by the Jacques Delors Centre. “The EU … imports close to 100 per cent of its rare earths from China,” the Delors report said. “This exposes it to supply disruptions and price volatility, amplifying vulnerabilities in critical sectors.”

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Gordon Repinski im Gespräch mit BMW-Chef Oliver Zipse. Im Zentrum: Der neue SUV iX3 und die „Neue Klasse“. BMWs frontaler Angriff auf Tesla und chinesische Hersteller wird am heutigen Freitag, 11 Uhr deutscher Zeit der Öffentlichkeit offiziell vorgestellt. Zipse erklärt die neue Designsprache „Licht statt Chrom“, das „Panoramic Display“ im Innenraum und warum auch der Sound einer sich öffnenden oder zuschlagenden Autotür mit entscheidet. Der CEO spricht über den harten Wettbewerb in China, seinen persönlichen Austausch mit Donald Trump über die US-Zölle und warum BMW trotz schwieriger Zeiten nicht in der Krise steckt. Es geht außerdem über die zurückliegenden Monate seiner Amtszeit, die Zukunft der deutschen Autoindustrie und was er vom angekündigten „Herbst der Reformen“ der Bundesregierung erwartet. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.

CHIATURA, Georgia — Giorgi Neparidze, a middle-aged man from near the town of Chiatura in western Georgia, still has marks on his lips from where he sewed his mouth shut during a hunger strike last year. He says Georgian Manganese, a mining company with close links to the government, has wrought environmental devastation around his home and has ignored the rights of its workers. He is seeking compensation.  Europe, which imports Georgia’s manganese, is partly to blame for the black rivers and collapsing houses in Chiatura district, Neparidze says. The former miner-turned-environmental and civil rights activist claims that in one village, Shukruti, toxic dust from the pits is making people unwell. Filthy black water, laced with heavy metals, periodically spurts out of pumps there. Houses are collapsing as the tunnels underneath them cave in.  Manganese, a black metal traditionally used to reinforce steel, is crucial for Europe’s green energy transition as it is used in both wind turbines and electric car batteries. The metal is also vital for military gear like armor and guns. In 2022, the European Union bought 20,000 metric tons of manganese alloys from Georgia — almost 3 percent of its total supply. A year later the bloc added manganese to its list of critical minerals. But Chiaturans say their lives are being ruined so that Western Europeans can breathe cleaner air. “We are sacrificed so that others can have better lives,” Neparidze says. “There are only 40,000 people in Chiatura. They might feel ill or live in bad conditions but they are sacrificed so that millions of Europeans can have a cleaner environment.” Neparidze says cancer rates in the region are unusually high. Doctors at a hospital in Chiatura back up the observation, but no official study has linked the illnesses to the mines. An aerial view of Chiatura with the polluted Kvirila River running through the town | Olivia Acland Hope that things will improve appears dim. European companies often don’t know where their manganese is sourced from. As ANEV, Italy’s wind energy association, confirms: “There is no specific obligation to trace all metals used in steel production.”  Last year the EU enacted a law that was meant to change that. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive obliges companies to run closer checks on their supply chains and clamp down on any human rights violations, poor working conditions and environmental damage.  But barely a year after it took effect, the European Commission proposed a major weakening of the law in a move to reduce red tape for the bloc’s sluggish industry. EU member countries, motivated by this deregulation agenda, are now pushing for even deeper cuts, while French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz want to get rid of the law altogether.  Meanwhile, Europe’s appetite for mined raw materials like manganese, lithium, rare earths, copper and nickel is expected to skyrocket to meet the needs of the clean energy transition and rearmament. Many of these resources are in poorly regulated and often politically repressive jurisdictions, from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Indonesia and Georgia. Weakening the EU supply chain law will have consequences for communities like Neparidze’s. “Only an empty shell of the directive remains,” says Anna Cavazzini, a member of the European Parliament’s Green Party, adding that the legislature caved to pressure from businesses seeking to reduce their costs. “Now is not the time to abandon the defense of human rights and give corporations a free hand,” she says.  A resident of Chiatura standing on a collapsed house following a mining-related landslide in Itkhvisi village. | Olivia Acland As Georgia’s government pivots toward Russia and stifles dissent, life is becoming increasingly dangerous for activists in Chiatura. On April 29, four activists including Neparidze were arrested for allegedly assaulting a mine executive. A statement put out by Chiatura Management Company, the firm in charge of staffing Georgian Manganese’s underground operations, says that Tengiz Koberidze, manager of the Shukruti mine, was “verbally abused and pelted with stones.” Supporters call it a staged provocation in which Koberidze tried to incite violence, and say it’s part of a broader campaign to silence resistance. If convicted they face up to six years behind bars. Koberidze did not respond to requests for comment. Chiatura residents are protesting over two overlapping issues. On one side, miners are demanding safer working conditions underground, where tunnel collapses have long been a risk, along with higher wages and paid sick leave. When the mine was temporarily shut in October 2024, they were promised 60 percent of their salaries, but many say those payments never materialized. Workers are also raising concerns about mining pollution in the region. “The company doesn’t raise wages, doesn’t improve safety, and continues to destroy the natural environment. Its profits come not just from extracting resources, but from exploiting both workers and the land,” says one miner, David Chinchaladze. Georgian Manganese did not respond to interview requests or written questions. Officials at Georgia’s Ministry of Mines and the government’s Environment Protection and Natural Resources Department did not respond to requests for comment. A collapsing building in Shukruti. | Olivia Acland.  The second group of protesters comes from the village of Shukruti, which sits directly above the mining tunnels. Their homes are cracking and sinking into the ground. In 2020, Georgian Manganese pledged to pay between 700,000 and 1 million Georgian lari ($252,000 to $360,000) annually in damages — a sum that was meant to be distributed among residents. But while the company insists the money has been paid, locals — backed by watchdog NGO Social Justice — say otherwise. According to them, fewer than 5 percent of Shukruti’s residents have received any compensation.  Their protest has intensified in the last year, with workers now blocking the roads and Shukruti residents barring entry to the mines. But the risks are intensifying too. Since suspending EU accession talks last year amid deteriorating relations with the bloc, Georgia’s ruling party has shuttered independent media, arrested protestors and amplified propaganda. The country’s democracy is “backsliding,” says Irakli Kavtaradze, head of the foreign department of the largest opposition political party, United National Movement. Their tactics “sound like they come from a playbook that is written in the Kremlin,” he adds. ‘KREMLIN PLAYBOOK’ In the capital Tbilisi, around 200 kilometers east of Chiatura, protesters have taken to the streets every night since April 2, 2024 when the government unveiled a Kremlin-style “foreign agents” law aimed at muzzling civil society.  Many demonstrators wear sunglasses, scarfs and masks to shield their identities from street cameras, wary of state retaliation.  A scene from the 336th day of protests in Tbilisi in April 2025. | Olivia Acland. Their protests swelled in October last year after the government announced it would suspend talks to join the EU. For Georgians, the stakes are high: Russia already occupies 20 percent of the country after its 2008 invasion, and people fear that a more profound drift from the EU could open the door to further aggression. When POLITICO visited in April, a crowd strode down Rustaveli Avenue, the city’s main artery. Some carried EU flags while others passed around a loudspeaker, taking it in turns to voice defiant chants. “Fire to the oligarchy!” one young woman yelled, the crowd echoing her call. “Power lies in unity with the EU!” another shouted. They also called out support for protestors in Chiatura, whose fight has become something of a cause célèbre across the country: “Solidarity to Chiatura! Natural resources belong to the people!”  The fight in Chiatura is a microcosm of the country’s broader struggle: The activists are not just taking on a mining company but a corporate giant backed by oligarchs and the ruling elites.  Georgian Manganese’s parent company, Georgian American Alloys, is registered in Luxembourg and counts Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky as a shareholder. He is in custody in Kyiv over allegations that he hired a gang to kill a lawyer who threatened his business interests in 2003. Kolomoisky has also been sanctioned by the United States for his alleged involvement in siphoning billions out of PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest bank.  Giorgi Kapanadze — a businessman closely connected with the ruling Georgian Dream party of Bidzina Ivanishvili — is listed as general manager of Georgian American Alloys.  Until recently, Kapanadze owned Rustavi TV, a channel notorious for airing pro-government propaganda. The European Parliament has called on the EU to hit Kapanadze with sanctions, accusing him of propping up the country’s repressive regime. Kolomoisky and Kapanadze did not respond to POLITICO’s requests for comment. The government swooped in to help Georgian Manganese in 2016 when a Georgian court fined it $82 million for environmental destruction in the region. The state placed it under “special management” and wrote off the fine. A new government-appointed manager was tasked, on paper, with cleaning up the mess. He was supposed to oversee a cleanup of the rivers that flow past the mines, among other promises. Manganese mining pit in Chiatura region, Georgia. | Olivia Acland But POLITICO’s own tests based on four samples taken in April 2025 from the Kvirila River, which runs through Chiatura, as well as its tributary, the Bogiristiskali, which were examined in a U.K. licensed laboratory, show the manganese levels in both rivers are over 10 times the legal limit. Iron levels are also higher than legally permitted. Locals use the polluted water to irrigate their crops. Fishermen are also pulling in increasingly empty nets as the heavy metals kill off aquatic life, according to local testimonies. The water from the Kvirila River flows out into the Black Sea, home to endangered dolphins, sturgeons, turtles and sharks.  A 2022 analysis by the Georgian NGO Green Policy found even worse results, with manganese in the Kvirila River averaging 42 times the legal limit. The group also detected excessive levels of iron and lead. Chronic manganese exposure can lead to irreversible neurological damage — a Parkinson’s-like condition known as manganism — as well as liver, kidney and reproductive harm. Lead and iron are linked to organ failure, cancer and cardiovascular disease. On Georgian Manganese’s website, the company concedes that “pollution of the Kvirila River” is one of the region’s “ecological challenges,” attributing it to runoff from manganese processing. It claims to have installed German-standard purification filters and claims that “neither polluted nor purified water” currently enters the river. Protesters like Neparidze aren’t convinced. They claim the filtration system is turned on only when inspectors arrive and that for the rest of the time, untreated wastewater is dumped straight into the rivers. BLOCKING EXPORTS Their protests having reaped few results, Chiaturans are taking increasingly extreme measures to make their voices heard.  Gocha Kupatadze, a retired 67-year-old miner, spends his nights in a tarpaulin shelter beside an underground mine, where he complains that rats crawl over him. “This black gold became the black plague for us,” he says. “We have no choice but to protest.” Kupatadze’s job is to ensure that manganese does not leave the mine. Alongside other protesters he has padlocked the gate to the generator that powers the mine’s ventilation system, making it impossible for anyone to work there. Kupatadze says he is only resorting to such drastic measures because conditions in his village, Shukruti, have become unlivable. His family home, built in 1958, is now crumbling, with cracks in the walls as the ground beneath it collapses from years of mining. The vines that once sustained his family’s wine-making traditions have long since withered and died. Gocha Kupatadze, an activist sleeping in a tarpaulin tent outside a mine. | Olivia Acland. For over a year, protesters across the region have intermittently blocked mine entrances as well as main roads, determined to stop the valuable ore from leaving Chiatura. In some ways it has worked: Seven months ago, Chiatura Management Company, the firm in charge of staffing Georgian Manganese’s underground operations, announced it would pause production.  “Due to the financial crisis that arose from the radical protests by the people of Shukruti village, the production process in Chiatura has been completely halted,” it read. Yet to the people of Chiatura, this feels more like a punishment than a triumph.  Manganese has been extracted from the area since 1879 and many residents rely on the mines for their livelihoods. The region bears all the hallmarks of a mining town that thrived during the Soviet Union when conditions in the mines were much better, according to residents. Today, rusted cable cars sway above concrete buildings that house washing stations and aging machinery.   While locals had sought compensation for the damage to their homes, they now just find themselves out of work.  Soviet-era buildings and mining infrastructure around Chiatura. | Olivia Acland.  Making matters worse, Georgian Manganese, licensed to mine 16,430 hectares until 2046, is now sourcing much of its ore from open pits instead of underground mines. These are more dangerous to the communities around them: Machines rip open the hillsides to expose shallow craters, while families living next to the pits say toxic dust drifts off them into their gardens and houses.  MORE PITS The village of Zodi is perched on a plateau surrounded by gently undulating hills, 10 kilometers from Chiatura. Many of its residents rely on farming, and cows roam across its open fields. “It is a beautiful village with a unique microclimate which is great for wine-making,” says Kote Abdushelishvili, a 36-year-old filmmaker from Zodi.  Mining officials say the village sits on manganese reserves. In 2023, caterpillar trucks rolled into Zodi and began ripping up the earth. Villagers, including Abdushelishvili, chased them out. “We stopped them,” he says, “We said if you want to go on, you will have to kill us first.” A padlocked gate to the mine’s ventilation system. | Olivia Acland Abdushelishvili later went to Georgian Manganese’s Chiatura office to demand a meeting with the state-appointed special manager. When he was turned away, he shouted up to the window: “You can attack us, you can kill us, we will not stop.” Two days later, as Abdushelishvili strolled through a quiet neighborhood in Tbilisi, masked men jumped out of a car, slammed him to the pavement and beat him up. Despite the fierce resistance in Chiatura, Georgian Manganese continues to send its metal to European markets. In the first two months of 2025, the EU imported 6,000 metric tons of manganese from Georgia. With the bloc facing mounting pressures — from the climate crisis to new defense demands — its hunger for manganese is set to grow. As the EU weakens its corporate accountability demands and Georgia drifts further into authoritarianism, the voices of Chiatura’s people are growing even fainter.  “We are not asking for something unreasonable,” says activist Tengiz Gvelesiani, who was recently detained in Chiatura along with Neparidze, “We are asking for healthy lives, a good working environment and fresh air.” Georgian Manganese did not respond to requests for comment. This article was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe.