Under the umbrella of the European Critical Raw Materials Act, Brussels aims to boost Europe’s strategic autonomy

Huelva, March 24, 2025. The European Commission has declared the Atlantic Copper CirCular project as being strategic. The project aims to recover non-ferrous metals such as copper, gold, silver, platinum, palladium and tin from waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) previously processed by authorized agents.

This milestone, which falls within the European Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA, 2024), follows a competitive process in which 170 strategic proposals for the exploitation and recycling of essential raw materials were evaluated. Of these projects, 121 came from Member States and 49 from other countries. In the end, seven Spanish projects made the cut: four dedicated entirely to extraction, one to recycling and another two that combine extraction and processing.

This list of projects, which will enable the extraction, processing or recycling of copper, tungsten, lithium, cobalt, nickel and platinum group metals, will benefit operationally from coordinated support from the Commission, Member States and financial institutions, particularly as regards access to financing. Thus, Brussels is preparing an investment chapter of about 22.5 billion euros to support future improvements or expansions in mining and industrial infrastructures, as well as others related to recycling and metal recovery, as in the case of CirCular.

Among the actions proposed by Atlantic Copper are: increasing its capacity to process the metals contained in WEEE from the anticipated 60,000 tons to 80,000 tons, the production of battery-quality nickel sulfate, the expansion of the electrolytic refinery and the start-up of a precious metals plant.

Macarena Gutiérrez, the Company’s Chief Administrator Officer, expressed her satisfaction with CirCular’s inclusion in this list and stressed that “this project will situate Atlantic Copper as a key player in the supply of raw materials essential for tackling the great challenges of the energy transition, digitalization and sustainable mobility”.

For his part, Javier Targhetta, President of the Board of Directors of Atlantic Copper, said that “we are very happy to contribute to the strategic autonomy of Andalusia, Spain and the European Union, always firm in our desire to create progress and employment and, in short, contribute to the construction of an ever-higher level of well-being and solidarity in our society.”

CirCular, which is scheduled to be launched in 2026, will be the first non-ferrous WEEE-based metal recovery project in Spain and one of the most innovative in Europe. With an investment of 410 million euros, it will create some 350 jobs (direct, indirect and derived).

Aligned with Europe

The Atlantic Copper project is aligned with the European Critical Raw Materials Act, which aims to ensure the stable supply of essential raw materials, reduce dependence on imports and promote sustainability. The EU has set itself targets to cover 10% of its needs through local extraction, 40% through internal processing and 25% through recycling by 2030, while limiting dependence on any one supplier country at each stage of the chain to 65%.