Jaarlijkse Europees Innovatie Partnerschapconferentie over grondstoffen van start gegaan (en)

Today at the annual conference of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Raw Materials, private, public and non-governmental bodies will be invited to make concrete commitments to help achieve a sustainable supply of raw materials for European industry.

The EIP on Raw Materials aims to reduce the EU's dependency on imports of raw materials, bring Europe to the forefront in raw materials sectors, and mitigate their negative environmental and social impacts. In September the EIP launched a Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) describing how these aims could be achieved.

But action by EU institutional actions alone will not be sufficient to ensure the success of the SIP. A large number of partners across the EU and the entire raw materials value chain - exploration, extraction, processing, refining and recycling, as well as substitution - must contribute.

To encourage participation from relevant partners, today's conference in Brussels will present the SIP in detail, as well as guidelines on how organisations can prepare a "Raw Materials Commitment". Concrete examples of possible commitments will be explained and networking opportunites provided for organisations seeking to find partners and create a joint project.

Potential EU Financial instruments available to support commitments will also be described during the conference. Next week the European Commission plans to launch Horizon 2020: the EU's research and innovation programme which has a total budget of nearly EUR 70 billion. As raw materials have been identified as one of the most crucial societal challenges under Horizon 2020, the Commission has ensured that the allocated budget should maximise the impact of the EIP's actions.