“Lo que es mina, contamina” – If it’s a mine, it contaminates. That’s the message Latin American human rights defenders brought to Brussels earlier this year (as laureates of the Marianne Initiative), as they expressed shock and concern over the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA). Framed as a pillar of the European Green Deal, the CRMA aims to ensure “sustainable” access to minerals, but its real-world implications tell a different story, writes Margarida Martins.
The statement is historically true: mining contaminates the environment – rivers, groundwater, soil – as well as local communities in its links with human rights abuses, gender-based violence, destroying community cohesion, and cultural loss.
The documentary Scars of Growth – screened by EEB in June – follows mining projects from northern Sweden to southern Spain, tracing the scars they leave on landscapes and communities. The environmental destruction and cultural disruption – especially to the Indigenous Sámi and traditional farming communities – highlight the contradictions in Europe’s “sustainable mining” push. Now, with mining interests expanding under the banner of green transition, communities are increasingly forced into the role of environmental defenders.
Fast-tracking Mines Under the Banner of Sustainability
The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), along with the Net-Zero Industry Act and electricity market reforms, is part of the EU’s strategy to become climate-neutral by 2050. To reduce dependence on foreign supply chains, the CRMA encourages domestic and partner-country extraction, designating certain projects as “Strategic Projects” that benefit from fast-tracked approval, streamlined environmental assessments, and access to funding.
These Strategic Projects are intended to help the EU meet 2030 targets, such as increasing domestic mining, boosting processing capacity, and improving recycling. But a troubling pattern is emerging where mining companies are being given special privileges, while transparency, environmental protections, and public participation are sidelined.
That’s why the EEB and ClientEarth created a guide, Understanding Strategic Projects Under the CRMA: A Guide to Rights and Processes, to help affected communities and civil society understand the legal rights and mechanisms available to them.
Communities Push Back: Holding the EU Accountable
In March 2025, the European Commission published its first list of Strategic Projects. The announcement raised more questions than answers. These projects are supposed to fulfil sustainability requirements, but the lack of transparency, public participation and hesitance to share information on how the Critical Raw Materials Board took their decision is nothing short of suspicious, and the process might even be in breach environmental law.
In response, several environmental NGOs, alongside affected communities, have filed Requests for Internal Review (RIRs) – a legal tool under the Aarhus Convention allowing the public to ask EU institutions to revisit decisions that may violate environmental laws.
One of the most controversial projects under challenge is a lithium mine in Covas do Barroso, Portugal. Designated as a Strategic Project, it threatens water resources, biodiversity, and centuries-old farming traditions. This project is emblematic of what’s at stake when environmental democracy is ignored in the name of resource extraction.
Dig, Baby, Dig – But At What Cost?
While the CRMA was being debated in Brussels, the Scars of Growth documentary captured the disconnect on the ground. As reindeer grazed the snowy fields in Sápmi and sheep farmers tended their flocks in Extremadura, EU lawmakers in December 2023 passed the Critical Raw Materials Act, which entered into force on May 23, 2024.
Officially, the CRMA is about securing raw materials for green industries, but its scope also includes supplying materials for defence and space. In practice, it risks prioritising extraction over protection, corporate access over community rights.
No Just Transition Without Justice
The designation of Strategic Projects under the CRMA has emboldened companies to dismiss or downplay legitimate environmental and social concerns. Communities raising alarms have been accused of spreading “lies” despite documented evidence of the harms.
The Commission is still expected to approve more Strategic Projects in future rounds. These decisions must not repeat the same mistakes. If the EU is serious about a just transition, environmental democracy needs to be at the core of its industrial plans. That means ensuring transparency, upholding environmental protections, and guaranteeing meaningful participation for affected communities.
Because without justice, there can be no true transition only a new phase of extraction and inequality, perpetuating the very crises of extractivism and colonialism we seek to overcome.
