The EU’s leaders arrived in Samarkand this April with a €13.2 billion ($15.18 billion) Global Gateway package and a clear message: Europe can be more than a distant buyer of ore. Critical raw materials (CRM) now sit at the heart of the partnership announced at the region’s first EU-Central Asia summit, and Brussels has earmarked €2.5 billion ($2.875 billion) of that money for new mining and processing projects across Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and beyond. For a bloc that still depends on China for 100 percent of its heavy rare-earth imports, the calculus is simple: diversify or stay vulnerable.
ESG is Europe’s only durable advantage
Eldaniz Gusseinov.
On paper, Europe is late to the race. According to Roman Vakulchuk, Chinese companies already manage 25 CRM projects in Central Asia and import about 70 percent of the region’s mined output for ores, slag and ash. Yet EU investors enjoy a reputational premium. Local executives routinely describe European partners as “a sign of quality” because they insist on environmental, social and governance (ESG) rules that Chinese or Russian firms often treat as optional. That edge will only matter, however, if Brussels hard-wires ESG into every euro it spends: audited remediation plans, transparent royalties, and community consultation up front rather than after the diggers arrive.
The bloc has begun to codify that promise. The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) sets non-binding goals to mine 10 percent, process 40 percent and recycle 25 percent of Europe’s annual CRM demand at home or in trusted partner states by 2030. Making those numbers real in Central Asia means financing water-efficient processing plants, closed-loop waste systems, and solar-powered smelters—not just more open-pit mines.
Whole-chain projects are starting to appear
The EU’s first real-world test case is graphite. In June, the Commission placed Kazakhstan’s Sarytogan deposit on its short list of “strategic projects” eligible for fast-track permitting and loan guarantees under the CRMA. One month earlier, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development paid €3 million ($3.4 million) for a 17.36 percent stake in the mine operator, its first direct equity position in Central Asia’s CRM sector. Brussels is now courting downstream investors to turn Karaganda’s raw ore into anode-grade graphite within the region, capturing value that historically sailed east to Chinese refineries.
Lithium is following the same template. HMS Bergbau and Kazakhstan’s Creada Corporation signed a $200 million agreement in June 2023 for exploration, extraction, and processing of complex rare metal ores in eastern Kazakhstan. If that facility breaks ground, it will mark the first attempt to turn Kazakh spodumene into battery-ready lithium hydroxide on-site—a direct response to EU automakers who cannot clear the bloc’s new battery-passport rules with raw concentrate alone.
Beijing is adapting and raising the bar
Europe’s window will not stay open forever. The revised PRC Mineral Resources Law will come into effect on July 1, 2025 (the third major update since 1986). It introduces for the first time a separate chapter on environmental remediation and mandates the preparation of reclamation plans before mining begins.
The law raises ESG standards but has been criticized for vague reclamation requirements and weak involvement of local communities. Formally, the regulations apply within China, but the authorities urge companies to apply them abroad, which will indirectly affect Central Asian projects: much of the raw material is still sent to China for processing.
Chinese capital is also moving downstream. East Hope Group signed a $12 billion deal in February to build a vertically integrated non-ferrous-metal cluster in Kazakhstan—ore, smelting, fabrication and its own renewable power in one complex that could employ 10,000 people. Europe’s rhetorical commitment to full value chains now meets a Chinese proof of concept on Central Asian soil.
There are three things Brussels should do now. Firstly, match capital with conditionality. EU financing lowers the cost of capital—but it should also enforce strong ESG standards. That means attaching funding to clear baselines: ISO-compliant tailings dams, methane monitoring, gender-balanced hiring plans, and meaningful penalties for backsliding. Without such safeguards, Europe’s soft-power premium will erode as Chinese firms adopt greener language.
Secondly, the EU can finance processing and recycling, not just pits. Local governments want jobs, technology transfer and higher tax take. Plants that produce cathode powders or rare-earth magnets inside Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan fit the CRMA’s 40 percent processing target and create incentives for visa reforms that let Central Asian engineers train in Europe and return.
Finally, the EU should remove talent barriers. The current Schengen visa maze means Kazakh metallurgists can reach Chongqing for a conference in 24 hours visa-free but wait weeks for a French consular slot. A targeted visa-facilitation deal, which was flagged in Samarkand, could turn Europe’s scientific networks into a decisive differentiator.
Why Central Asia should insist on the full chain
Astana, Tashkent, Bishkek and Dushanbe have spent three decades exporting raw ore and re-importing finished metals at a premium. Domestic processing captures several times more value per ton, cushions budgets against commodity-price swings, and seeds supplier ecosystems from chemical reagents to precision casting. It also lets regulators enforce stricter environmental audits because the plants sit on national soil, not thousands of kilometers away.
Local competitive advantages are real. Kazakhstan was the third largest chromite producer in 2018 with 4.6 million tons, behind South Africa (16 million tons) and Türkiye (6.5 million tons); Uzbekistan offers proximity to global copper smelters and a reform-minded investment code. But these assets will translate into durable prosperity only if governments require investors—European, Chinese, or American—to build processing trains and fund end-of-life recycling loops.
A race Europe can still win
Europe does not need to out-spend China’s Belt and Road bankroll; it needs to outcompete on trust, transparency and technology. By coupling hard cash with enforceable ESG metrics—and by underwriting the entire supply chain from exploration, beneficiation, and refining to fabrication and recycling—the EU can secure reliable, politically stable flows of cobalt, graphite, lithium, and rare earths while giving Central Asia the industrial upgrade it seeks.
Fail to do so, and the region’s most promising deposits will flow into vertically integrated Chinese clusters, leaving Brussels once again dependent on a single supplier.
The next 18 months, before China’s new mining takes effect and East Hope’s megaproject breaks ground, may be the EU’s last, best chance to prove that ESG is more than a press release, and that a complete, green supply chain can run through the Kazakh steppe to the factory floors of Europe.
The author is Eldaniz Gusseinov, a non-resident research fellow at Haydar Aliyev Center for Eurasian Studies of the Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Astana Times.
