The role of circularity in European strategic autonomy
JRC Working Paper Series For a Fair, Innovative and Sustainable Economy, 3/2025
Geopolitical relations are changing at lightning speed. China, Russia and even long-standing ally the US are developing themselves as major competitors of Europe. We seem to have entered an era where the existing geopolitical balance is moving to a new equilibrium. The only way Europe can keep on standing for traditional values such as being a society based on general human rights and the rule of law, is to be a strong, strategically autonomous power. Having access to natural resources that are crucial for future critical technologies is one of the elements for safeguarding strategic autonomy.
Strategic autonomy requires a reasonable level of independence in a number of fields. According to the Draghi report, these include at least 1) closing the innovation gap with China and the US, 2) ensuring an accessible, low cost and low-carbon energy supply; and 3) Increase security and reduce dependencies. But all these goals only can be realised if Europe stays united while its adversaries actively have learned to use social media, AI etc. to promote narratives, actors and election results that divide Europe. Europe also cannot afford itself relying on a digital infrastructure that is controlled by others, particularly the US. For the future we may even have to prepare for a situation where, next to more traditional trade policy instruments, manipulation of monetary valuation systems becomes an element in the type of hybrid warfare we see currently emerging between the major global economic blocks.
In essence, Europe has to learn how to be a global power in its own right again. This paper will not discuss how Europe can arrange a unified, state of the art defense system, protect itself against manipulation via social media or of the value of its companies and currencies, nor analyze how consistency and effectiveness of its innovation systems can be improved. It will mainly focus on which resources and value chains Europe needs to control to realise strategic economic autonomy. For this purpose, this paper is listing a number of ‘stranglehold technologies’ that Europe needs to control to stay a strong, independent entity. From there, this paper analyses which supply chains and critical raw materials are crucial. It then analyses to what extent circular economy approaches can support European resilience in terms of supply chains of critical materials and components.
The conclusion is that for many technologies the alleviative potential of circularity is there, but also has challenges. First, most stranglehold technologies are innovative and not yet widely deployed. If they rely on critical components of materials, these cannot yet be harvested from current waste related to such technologies – the market is still growing and hence needs primary input. Yet, even in such cases circularity can already be relevant on the short term. Critical and strategic materials including Rare Earths and Copper are used in many other products. Europe tends to import significant amounts of products with components containing strategic and critical materials. An efficient recovery of materials from such end-of-life products can support primary production of stranglehold technologies in Europe. For instance, the recovery of copper and of critical materials from Waste of Electrical and Electronical Equipment and can still be drastically improved.
TUKKER Arnold;
2025-12-15
European Commission
JRC142613
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC142613,
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