Belgium’s Comet, Umicore Win EU Critical Materials Status

The European Commission on Friday selected two Belgian projects — a copper-recycling plant run by the Walloon group Comet near La Louvière and an Umicore facility near Antwerp — as part of a second list of 46 “strategic projects” under the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), announced by EU Commissioner for Industrial Strategy Stéphane Séjourné. The designation gives both operations streamlined permitting, privileged access to EU and private financing, and matchmaking support with buyers — part of Brussels’ drive to secure supplies of copper, cobalt, nickel and other materials essential to the green and digital transitions.

Context

Europe has long depended on imported raw materials, and the bloc is under growing pressure to diversify. The CRMA, in force since 23 May 2024, requires the EU by 2030 to cover at least 10% of its annual consumption through extraction, 40% through processing and 25% through recycling of strategic raw materials, while sourcing no more than 65% of any single material at any processing stage from a single non-EU country. According to the European Commission’s representation in Belgium, Friday’s selection covers 15 of the 17 strategic raw materials and spans eight extraction, 11 processing and 19 recycling projects across 16 member states.

The two Belgian projects

At Strépy-Bracquegnies, near La Louvière, Comet’s “Cupidon” project extracts copper from industrial residue at its Biolix subsidiary. “We dissolve all the metals. Once they are all dissolved, we separate the copper from the other metals. After obtaining a copper-rich solution, we pass a very intense current through it, which forms solid copper plates,” operations engineer Frédéric Cornant told Antenne Centre. The plant processes 10,000 tonnes of waste a year, extracting 600 tonnes of copper at a purity of 99.995%, a level Comet’s management adviser Cédric Slergers described as “the equivalent of what is produced in the mines in Chile.” The copper produced in Strépy generates five to ten times less carbon than copper imported from Chile, and the group plans to double the site’s surface area and capacity, lifting employment there from about 20 to 78 by 2030. In September, Comet unveiled a €244 million investment plan through 2032, backed by the federal investment company SFPIM and Wallonie Entreprendre.

Umicore’s project at Hoboken, near Antwerp, focuses on treating copper, cobalt, nickel and platinum group metals. The site is a world leader in precious-metals recycling, recovering 17 metals from electronic scrap and industrial by-products, according to Umicore.

A second wave — and a sobering scorecard

Friday’s list is the second under the CRMA, following 47 EU projects approved in March 2025 and 13 projects in non-EU partner countries in June 2025. Together, the Commission says, the selections could now fully meet the EU’s extraction targets for lithium, nickel, rare earths, magnesium and tungsten, and its recycling targets for lithium, cobalt and rare earths.

Séjourné linked the push directly to pressure from Beijing, noting that “exactly one year ago, China announced new export restrictions on rare earths.” Those controls, he said, “had the potential to shut down entire production chains in Europe, like automotive or wind turbines.” China’s measures are due to expire or be suspended in January 2027, with negotiations ongoing.

The rosier headline figures, however, mask a difficult record on delivery. A new analysis by the European Environmental Bureau, shared with Politico, found that at least one in three of the first round’s mining and processing projects is late, stalled, at risk or no longer exists — and that only about a quarter are clearly on track. European Court of Auditors findings this year similarly warned that many projects will struggle to secure supply for the EU by 2030, while the OECD-linked think tank ODI found that most projects are behind schedule. Industry leaders including Boliden, LKAB and Savannah Resources have publicly questioned whether the “strategic project” label materially accelerates permitting or financing; France’s Viridian Lithium went bankrupt and a Portuguese refinery project failed to secure funding despite first-round status. A Commission official countered that the Court of Auditors audited an earlier policy period and that the EU remains on track for its lithium, cobalt and rare earth goals, with mixed results elsewhere.

Analysis and implications

For Belgium, the selection is both a symbolic and a practical boost. The country has a deep industrial tradition in non-ferrous metals, and Comet’s technology — applying a mining-world hydrometallurgical process to industrial waste — is, according to Slergers, a world first in a European industry. It also fits squarely into the circular-economy narrative that King Philippe heard about when he visited La Louvière earlier this year, where the Cupidon project was presented to him.

Yet the Belgian win sits inside a broader EU effort that remains far from assured. The gap between the ambition of the CRMA and the reality of getting mines, refineries and recycling plants built in densely populated Europe — where permitting, financing and local opposition are persistent obstacles — is the central tension of the bloc’s raw-materials strategy. Projects that have won the label but not the money or the permits are a reminder that designation alone does not deliver metal.

What’s next

The Commission plans a third call for strategic projects at the end of 2026, alongside a list of non-EU partner-country projects. Between now and then, the focus will be on whether the 46 newly designated projects — including Belgium’s two — can translate their status into faster permits, real financing and, ultimately, output. With China’s rare-earth export controls set to lapse in January, the window in which Europe can build its own capacity will be sharply tested.