The strongest argument for European interest lies in the sector’s growing alignment with the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act. The CRM Act is designed to improve the Union’s security of supply for critical and strategic raw materials by diversifying external sourcing, strengthening processing and recycling capacity, and reducing excessive dependence on a limited number of supplier countries. This effort has since been reinforced by the RESourceEU Action Plan, adopted by the European Commission to accelerate and amplify efforts to secure the EU’s supply of critical raw materials such as rare earth elements, cobalt and lithium. Building on the CRM Act, RESourceEU provides financing and concrete tools to protect European industry from geopolitical and price shocks, promote projects on critical raw materials in Europe and beyond, and partner with like-minded countries to diversify supply chains. For the European Commission, supply resilience is a matter of processing, refining, sustainability, traceability and long-term partnerships.

Saudi Arabia is increasingly positioning itself in precisely these spaces. The Kingdom has made critical raw materials a more explicit part of its diversification strategy, with growing attention to lithium, copper and rare earths in addition to its established strengths in phosphate and other minerals. More significantly, recent Saudi messaging suggests a strategic shift from acquiring minority stakes abroad towards building domestic processing and refining capabilities, particularly in segments relevant to clean technology supply chains. This shift is highly pertinent from a European perspective, as the CRM Act favours resilient value chains capable of supporting industrial offtake, responsible sourcing and strategic autonomy.

This convergence is no longer merely conceptual. During the Future Minerals Forum 2026 in Riyadh, the European Union and Saudi Arabia convened a high-level EU-KSA Business & Investment Dialogue focused specifically on advancing cooperation across critical raw materials value chains. The discussion brought together around 60 senior representatives from public authorities, industry and financial institutions, and was framed around the alignment between EU policies under the CRM Act and ResourceEU, and Saudi Arabia’s mining and industrial priorities. This development matters, as it suggests that Saudi mining could increasingly feature in EU policy discussions, alongside its commercial dimension, as one element within the Union’s wider external raw materials diplomacy.

The practical challenge for European stakeholders is therefore to move from dialogue to project-level engagement, particularly in areas where European firms can offer differentiated value: advanced exploration, mining equipment and services, process engineering, digitalisation, mine safety, low-impact technologies and training.