On 13 September 2017, the European Commission published its new 2017 list of Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) – Beryllium is, once again, included as a critical raw material.
The Raw Materials initiative was put forward in 2008 to tackle the challenges related to the access to raw materials. The primary purpose of the list is to identify the raw materials with a high supply-risk and a high economic importance for the European Industry.
The new list features 27 critical raw materials and is the result of a third assessment conducted by the European Commission – the two previous lists were published in 2014 (20 CRMs) and in 2011 (14 CRMs).
Following the recommendations contained in the 2014 Report of the Ad hoc Working Group on defining critical raw materials, the third assessment was conducted based on a refined methodology which includes parameters such as economic importance, supply risk, trade and substitution.
The 2017 criticality assessment was carried out for 78 raw materials and the current list includes nine new raw materials (Baryte, Bismuth, Hafnium, Helium, Natural rubber, Phosphorus, Scandium, Tantalum and Vanadium) while Chromium, Coking Coal and Magnesite were not deemed critical based on the 2017 assessment. However, Coking Coal is maintained on the list as a borderline case given that it narrowly misses the economic importance threshold.
Beryllium is a critical raw material for the EU and was included also in the past lists published by the European Commission.