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The EU identifies critical raw materials by assessing two things: how important a material is to the EU economy and how exposed its supply is to disruption. Under Regulation (EU) 2024/1252, the Commission uses thresholds of 2.8 for economic importance and 1 for supply risk. A separate, forward-looking strategic-material test considers technologies, demand growth and the difficulty of expanding production. Strategic materials are included in the Act’s critical-material list, even if they do not meet both ordinary criticality thresholds.
These classifications are structured assessments of economic importance and supply exposure—not predictions that a shortage will happen. Scores and list membership can change as supply chains, technologies, trade, recycling and substitution change.
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How does the EU identify critical raw materials?
The European Commission assesses materials against two dimensions: economic importance and supply risk. The framework is established in Regulation (EU) 2024/1252, the Critical Raw Materials Act. It is designed to identify materials whose importance to the EU economy coincides with vulnerabilities in their supply—not simply materials that are rare, expensive or imported.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsThe two dimensions answer different questions. Economic importance asks what EU economic activity depends on the material and how readily it could be substituted. Supply risk asks how vulnerable EU supply is to disruption, taking account of where the supply-chain bottleneck lies and several features of the supply chain. The Commission applies the assessment at EU level.
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The legal thresholds for the ordinary criticality route are:
| Dimension | Threshold | What it represents |
|---|---|---|
| Economic importance | At least 2.8 | The material’s importance to EU economic activity, adjusted for economic substitutability. |
| Supply risk | At least 1 | The assessed exposure of EU supply to disruption, accounting for factors including concentration, sourcing, governance and trade, recycling and substitution. |
A material meeting both thresholds qualifies through the standard criticality assessment. The figures are score thresholds, not percentages, probabilities of a shortage or measures of how many years of supply remain.
How does the EU measure economic importance?
The assessment connects a material’s end uses to the EU economic sectors that use it. The Commission maps those uses to two-digit NACE sectors and weights them by the sectors’ value added. That makes the result an estimate of the material’s importance to relevant EU economic activity, rather than a simple count of applications or a measure of geological scarcity.
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Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Economic importance is adjusted for economic substitutability. The assessment considers whether another material can perform the relevant function and how its technical performance and cost compare. A substitute that works technically but is substantially less viable on cost may not offer a practical way to reduce dependence. Conversely, viable substitutes can reduce the assessed importance of relying on a particular material.
This dimension therefore depends on both where a material is used and how difficult it would be for affected economic activity to switch. A high score is not simply evidence that a material has many uses; it reflects its relationship to the value added of the sectors using it and the scope for substitution.
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How does the EU assess supply risks?
The Commission assesses supply risk at the material’s bottleneck stage—either extraction or processing—where the EU faces the highest risk. Looking at the bottleneck matters because a material’s supply chain can be vulnerable at a different point from the one where the raw material is mined. Concentrated processing can matter even when extraction is distributed, and the reverse can also be relevant.
The assessment combines several factors rather than treating imports or a leading producer as sufficient evidence of risk on their own:
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- Country conditions: governance and trade conditions in producing and supplying countries, including whether those conditions could affect access.
- EU import reliance: how much the EU depends on external supply, which influences the weighting of global producers compared with the countries from which the EU actually sources.
- Recycling: the contribution of material recovered from end-of-life products, expressed as end-of-life recycling input.
- Technical substitution: whether other materials can perform the relevant applications and reduce exposure to the assessed material.
The regulation specifies that calculations use an average of the most recent five years for which data are available. Data priority, quality and availability are also taken into account. A score is thus built from available historical information under the prescribed method; it should not be read as a forecast that a specific disruption will occur in a given year.
Import dependence is only one part of the calculation. A material supplied from abroad is not automatically critical, and production concentration alone does not determine the result. The assessment also considers the bottleneck, EU sourcing patterns, country conditions, recycling and substitutes. The combination is what makes the result material- and stage-specific.
What is the difference between critical and strategic raw materials?
Strategic raw materials are selected using a distinct, forward-looking lens. The Act considers their relevance to green and digital technologies and to defence and aerospace applications, expected global demand growth, and how difficult it would be to increase production. This is not the same two-axis test used to determine ordinary criticality.
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| Question | Criticality assessment | Strategic-material assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Main lens | Current economic importance to the EU and exposure to supply risk. | Relevance to strategic technologies and sectors, future demand growth, and difficulty of expanding production. |
| Core criteria | Economic-importance score and supply-risk score, assessed against legal thresholds. | Technology relevance, expected global demand growth and production-scaling difficulty. |
| Relationship in the Act | Materials meeting both thresholds qualify through the ordinary criticality route. | Strategic raw materials are included in the Act’s critical-material list, including where they do not pass both criticality thresholds. |
The European Commission’s 2023 overview gives copper and nickel as examples of materials that did not meet the critical-raw-material thresholds but were included on the list because they were designated strategic. This illustrates why “critical” can describe the Act’s umbrella list while critical-threshold qualification and strategic status have different selection logic.
The distinction is useful when interpreting the list: a strategic designation signals a forward-looking concern about technologies, demand and production capacity, not necessarily a finding that the material passed both ordinary criticality thresholds.
What do the list and concentration examples tell you?
The Commission’s 2023 assessment screened 70 candidate raw materials: 67 individual materials and three groups. It published a list of 34 critical raw materials. Those figures describe that assessment and list edition; they should not be treated as an immutable count for all later editions.
The scope of earlier assessments also changed. The Commission describes assessments of 41 materials in 2011, 54 in 2014, 78 in 2017, and 83 materials represented by 66 candidates in 2020. Because the number and grouping of candidates and the methodology have evolved, comparing counts across editions without naming the year and assessment scope can be misleading.
The Commission’s critical-raw-materials page, checked in 2026, gives these examples of EU supply concentration:
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| Material or group | Reported EU supply source | What the figure describes |
|---|---|---|
| Heavy rare earth elements | China: 100% | China provides all of the EU’s supply of heavy rare earth elements. |
| Boron | Turkey: 99% | Turkey provides 99% of the EU’s supply of boron. |
| Platinum | South Africa: 71% | South Africa provides 71% of the EU’s needs for platinum. |
These are specific supply-concentration examples, not complete risk scores. They apply to the material and EU supply or needs described, not automatically to related materials or every stage of their supply chains. The figures also reflect the Commission page as checked in 2026; they should not be assumed to stay constant.
The Commission notes that concentrated production is compounded in many cases by low substitution and low recycling rates. The overall assessment still depends on its combined factors, so a concentration figure alone cannot tell you whether or why a material meets the criticality thresholds.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How does the EU look beyond the current cross-economy assessment?
The Commission’s 2023 foresight update complements the cross-economy criticality assessment. It assessed 15 technologies mapped to five strategic sectors and considered demand perspectives for 2030 and 2050. This longer-term view helps inform strategic selection and supply planning, but it is not interchangeable with the two-axis criticality score.
That distinction matters when interpreting future-demand figures or technology studies. They concern prospective needs in specified technologies and sectors; the criticality assessment asks a separate question about economic importance and supply risk under its methodology.
Does “critical” mean the EU will run out?
No. Criticality is a classification based on assessed economic importance and supply exposure, not a guarantee or forecast of an imminent shortage. A high supply-risk score does not establish that disruption is certain; it indicates that the factors in the methodology show elevated exposure under the assessment.
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Nor does criticality mean that a material is geologically rare, has a high price, or comes from only one country. Those may be relevant facts in particular cases, but none alone substitutes for the Commission’s combined assessment. Recycling, substitutes, the relevant bottleneck and EU sourcing patterns can all affect the result.
List membership can also change as underlying conditions and evidence change. The Act requires the Commission to review and, if necessary, update the critical and strategic lists by 24 May 2027 and at least every three years after that.
How should you compare materials or different list editions?
A sound comparison aligns the assessment year, the form of material being assessed and the geographic scope. For two materials, or for one material across editions, examine the underlying dimensions and factors rather than relying on the list label or a single headline supply percentage.
- Compare the economic-importance and supply-risk scores, where available, against the applicable thresholds.
- Identify whether the assessed bottleneck is extraction or processing.
- Check production concentration separately from the concentration of the EU’s actual sourcing.
- Consider import reliance alongside governance and trade exposure in the relevant supplying countries.
- Account for end-of-life recycling input and the availability and performance of technical substitutes.
- For strategic status, consider technology relevance, expected demand growth and the difficulty of increasing production.
The Commission’s public overview explains the framework and gives selected examples, but it does not provide a complete current table of every material’s underlying values. A list entry alone therefore does not establish the exact score, bottleneck or factor values for a particular material. Those details require the corresponding official factsheet or underlying assessment data.
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