Bridging the Atlantic: Avenues for collaboration on critical raw materials value chains between the EU and LAC regions

News item | 25-05-2026 | 17:32

On 30 April, the Dutch economical network from the LATAM region supported an event in the principal conference room at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL). Here, two important institutions underpinning the Dutch and European Critical raw Materials Strategies, being the National Materials Observatory (NMO) and the European CRM Facility, presented the results of studies they have been conducting over the past half year.

 

These studies took some of the most important recommendations by CEPAL on how the region can sustainably develop its copper and lithium value chains. Countries in the Southern Cone (Peru, Chile, Argentina) are especially rich in these minerals, but Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico have reserves in copper and/or lithium as well. The recommendations that were taken as a starting point were:

Copper

  1. Lowering the Water Footprint
  2. Increasing Copper Refining Capacity in Latin America
  3. Decarbonizing the Energy Supply 

Lithium

  1. Lowering the Water footprint
  2. Improving Extraction and Processing Techniques
  3. Enhancing Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE)
  4. Developing Battery Recycling and Circular Economy Strategies
  5. Increasing Production of Cathodes and Battery Precursors
  6. Promoting Public-Private Partnerships and Cross-Regional Collaboration

Both parties, NMO and the CRM Facility, looked at which Dutch/European companies and knowledge institutions have capabilities in these areas, and are thus well-positioned to deepen strategic collaboration with the LAC region. The Dutch strengths that were highlighted by NMO were in lowering the water footprint of both value chains, as well as circular batteries. 

The main conclusion of the study performed by the CRM Facility, was that Europe has many technologies that could be implemented or co-created with parties in Latin America, to create more value locally and in turn secure more minerals for the European market.

Company presentations by Desolenator (the Netherlands), Sensmet (Finland) and K-UTEC (Germany) highlighted European capabilities in low-carbon desalination, superior metallurgic sensoring and scientific consultancy in lithium, respectively. 

 

The event closed off with a panel discussion, where technology and innovation centers from Chile and Peru took part, stressing the importance of closing the innovation gap: often, the private sector (in this case, big mining concerns) will only adopt an innovative new technology once it is already proven. So many promising innovations are never scaled up to an industrial level. Partnerships between universities, pilot centers, and companies is therefore very important, and European and Latin parties can join forces here.

This was a great kick-off of bigger and better interregional collaboration on this topic! In case you are interested to learn more about what parties from the Netherlands can do for you? Please reach out to our embassy: stg-ea@minbuza.nl

If you are specifically interested in circularity in batteries, please take a look at the recently published Circular Battery Guide: Powering partnerships for circular batteries