What is missing in the decree on critical raw materials
Sergio Giraldo's point taken from the Out newsletter
The Council of Ministers has given the green light to the mining decree, which unlocks a sector which, if well governed and under certain conditions (the topic is very delicate and mines have a strong environmental impact), can give the country some satisfaction. The decree is primarily concerned with defining a framework of attributions and roles, taking into account the invasive European Regulation on critical materials ((EU) 2024/1252) .
New powers are attributed to the Interministerial Committee for the ecological transition, a Technical Committee is created, tasks related to mineral resources are delegated to ISPRA, a register of strategic companies is created (those that constitute the demand for critical minerals). The strategic fund for Made in Italy is launched, co-managed by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and INVIMIT, with an initial endowment of one billion euros.
Everything OK. Something is missing, though. In the decree there is a lot of regard for extraction, but none for the transformation of the extracted minerals. Extracting minerals and then having them processed abroad is not a good strategy, given that refining minerals (a bit like refining oil to transform it into petrol) often represents the real bottleneck in the availability of critical materials. Therefore, somewhere it will be necessary to write that what is extracted in Italy must be processed in Italy by Italian companies, or to place limits on the export of minerals from the country. If you want to create jobs and supply chains under strategic control, that's the minimum. Even Indonesia has placed limits on the export of nickel ore to create a national transformation chain, which in addition to being strategic has greater added value for the country. There is time to correct the decree in Parliament.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/decreto-materie-prime-critiche-cosa-manca/ on Sun, 30 Jun 2024 05:39:43 +0000.