From Raw Ores to Strategic Autonomy: The Western Balkans in Europe’s Critical Raw Materials Strategy

The policy brief authored by Dr. Ana Krstinovska, Senior Research Fellow, think nea – New Narratives of EU Integration & Research Fellow, Wider Europe Programme, ELIAMEP titled: “From Raw Ores to Strategic Autonomy: The Western Balkans in Europe’s Critical Raw Materials Strategy”, is an expansion of the finding of the thematic report “Raw Materials for a Resilient Europe: The EU’s Strategic Partnership with the Western Balkans” (authored by Dr. A. Krstinovska and Dr. A. Wolf) and it examines the strategic importance of the Western Balkans for Europe’s critical raw materials security and industrial resilience. The brief is part of think nea – New Narratives of EU Integration, an initiative implemented by the Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) and supported by the Open Society Foundations – Western Balkans.

Against the backdrop of the EU Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) and growing geopolitical competition over access to strategic resources, the brief analyses how the Western Balkans have emerged as a significant, yet underutilized, component of Europe’s raw materials ecosystem. It highlights the region’s deposits of copper, lithium, aluminium, nickel, antimony, and rare earth elements, while examining the geopolitical and economic implications of existing extraction and trade patterns.

The analysis demonstrates how current value chains often channel raw ores and concentrates from the Western Balkans towards China, while processed goods flow to EU markets, reinforcing Europe’s strategic vulnerabilities and limiting regional industrial development. The paper also explores the growing role of non-EU actors in the region’s extractive industries, the lack of local refining and processing capacities, and the governance, environmental, and social challenges associated with major mining projects.

Drawing on these findings, the brief argues that the EU should move beyond a narrowly extractive approach and embed raw materials cooperation within the enlargement process itself. It proposes a strategy centred on value-chain upgrading, regional industrial integration, investment in processing and recycling capacities, updated geological mapping, and stronger governance conditionality linked to EU accession chapters.

The paper concludes that the Western Balkans can contribute substantially to Europe’s strategic autonomy if integrated into EU industrial and regulatory frameworks in a credible and sustainable manner. In this sense, the brief presents raw materials cooperation not only as an economic necessity, but also as a geopolitical and enlargement opportunity capable of strengthening both European resilience and the EU accession perspective of the region.

You can read the policy brief here.