EU to stockpile critical minerals due to war risk

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Brussels has said it will build up emergency stockpiles of critical minerals and cable repair kits, as concerns grow over the EU’s vulnerability to attack.

“The EU faces an increasingly complex and deteriorating risk landscape marked by rising geopolitical tensions, including conflict, the mounting impacts of climate change, environmental degradation, and hybrid and cyber threats,’’ the European Commission said in a draft document setting out a stockpiling strategy, seen by the Financial Times.

Member states should co-ordinate backup supplies of food, medicines and even nuclear fuel, the EU executive said. It would also accelerate work on EU-level stockpiles of items such as cable repair modules “to ensure prompt recovery from energy or optical cable disruptions” and commodities such as rare earths and permanent magnets, which are crucial for energy and defence systems.

Several instances of potential sabotage to underwater communication cables and gas pipelines in recent years have caused concern about the vulnerability of critical infrastructure.

The strategy is part of a wider push by the EU to improve the security and resilience of the 27-country bloc. Last month, General Carsten Breuer, the German chief of defence, warned that Russia could attack an EU member state within the next four years.

The higher-risk environment was driven by ‘‘increased activity from hacktivists, cybercriminals and state-sponsored groups”, the document said.

The EU is also more susceptible than many other regions to the effects of climate change as it is warming twice as fast as the global average. Wildfires in Crete forced 5,000 people to evacuate the island this week.

In a report commissioned by the EU in October, former Finnish president Sauli Niinistö said that security should be considered a “public good” and called for a preparedness mindset.

On stockpiling, he said that Brussels should “define targets to ensure minimum levels of preparedness in different crisis scenarios, including in the event of an armed aggression or the large-scale disruption of global supply chains”.

The EU in March also advised households to stockpile essential supplies to survive at least 72 hours of crisis.

The bloc already maintains a fleet of firefighting planes and helicopters, a medical evacuation plane, and items such as field hospitals and critical medical supplies across 22 EU countries as part of its emergency response effort for natural disasters.

But the commission said it would establish a “stockpiling network” to improve co-ordination between EU countries. There was “limited common understanding of which essential goods are needed for crisis preparedness against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving risk landscape”, it said in the document.

It would also start compiling regularly updated lists of essential supplies tailored to each region and crisis type. Member states should better incentivise the private sector to help with stockpiling, such as through tax credits, it said.

The bloc should also work with allies on “shared warehousing” and co-ordinate better on managing resources and dual-use infrastructure with Nato.

The need for investment in critical stockpiling would also be considered in proposals for its new multiannual budget, which are due to be put forward later this month.

The draft document is due to be published next week and could change ahead of its presentation.