Michael Schmidt, a research associate at the German Mineral Resources Agency, said that while Argentina, Brazil or Mexico could be in a good position to do so, others — including Chile and Bolivia — would be likely to struggle initially.
Success depends “to a certain extent, on whether a country already has a car industry, whether it already has a local supply chain industry … and whether you have a domestic sales market or access to other markets,” he said.
The EU’s main focus, experts agree, should be to cooperate with the region to get lithium out of the ground and onto the market.
“Providing lithium is not a problem in theory, but it is a problem in practice,” said Maximilian Fichtner, a battery expert and director of the Helmholtz Institute Ulm. There are enough lithium reserves, but it is not yet available on the market as it takes around 10 years to turn a discovery into a producing mine, he said.
‘Partner of choice’
Brussels also understands it needs to ensure both sides benefit from raw material partnerships — something it is turning that into a core selling point to set itself apart from Beijing.
The EU wants to become “the partner of choice” for Latin American countries, said European Commission spokesperson Sonya Gospodinova, saying the goal is “to jointly develop a competitive, sustainable and responsible industry for extracting, processing, refining and recycling critical and strategic raw materials.”
Source link : https://www.politico.eu/article/latin-america-eyes-leverage-lithium-as-eu-scrambles-for-resources/
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Publish date : 2023-07-20 03:00:00
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