Study on the EU's list of Critical Raw Materials (2020): Final Report

Blengini, G.A., Latunussa, C., Eynard, U., Matos, C.T., Wittmer, D., Georgitzikis, K., Pavel, C., Carrara, S., Mancini, L., Unguru, M., Blagoeva, D., Mathieux, F., Pennington, D. (2020). Study on the EU's list of Critical Raw Materials (2020): Final Report. Publications Office of the European Union. Available here.

The 2020 CRM Final Report expanded the EU’s Critical Raw Materials list from 27 to 30 materials, forming the methodological foundation that subsequent CRM cycles — including the 2023 CRMA assessment — would inherit and refine. The study evaluated 83 candidate materials against supply risk and economic importance thresholds, adding bauxite, lithium, titanium, and strontium as new entries. Its structural legacy is the supply risk formula: materials produced domestically receive near-zero supply risk scores by construction, regardless of how concentrated global production may be — a design choice that systematically shields foundational industrial minerals from criticality designation so long as EU self-sufficiency persists.