CIRAN participates in MINEX Europe 2025 Forum in Lisbon, Portugal

On the 21st of October 2025, CIRAN was presented in the MINEX Europe 2025 Forum held in Lisbon, Portugal. CIRAN contributed to Session 4: “Europe’s Mining Dilemma: Aligning Mineral Needs with Environmental and Social Imperatives, alongside distinguished speakers from Eurometaux, ERM, and the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA).

The MINEX Europe 2025 Forum brought together policymakers, industry leaders, researchers, and civil society representatives to discuss the challenges and opportunities for responsible mining development in Europe. The detailed programme can be viewed on the MINEX Forum website.

CIRAN coordinator and INTRAW Secretary-General Vitor Correia presented “Mining in Environmentally Protected Areas: From Public Opposition to Public Support”. The presentation focused on a critical challenge facing Europe’s critical raw materials strategy: over 85% of EU mineral deposits are located within or less than 5 km from environmentally protected areas, creating an apparent conflict between resource security and conservation goals.

Key insights shared include:

• Traditional approaches relying solely on technical assessments and economic promises have proven insufficient to address legitimate community concerns
• Community Development Agreements (CDAs) offer a proven legal framework to balance strategic autonomy needs with local interests – See the Policy Brief on CDAs produced by CIRAN here.
• Our work with communities across Europe identified three non-negotiables for local acceptance:

1. 1. The mineral must be genuinely critical for society (a CRM),
   2. Environmental impact must be minimal or net-positive,
   3. Communities must receive tangible benefits.

The discussion highlighted how Europe can move beyond viewing public acceptance as an obstacle to recognising it as an essential foundation for sustainable resource development. CDAs provide a pathway to transform opposition into partnership through genuine benefit-sharing, environmental protection guarantees, and meaningful community participation in decision-making.

This work builds on research conducted in CIRAN, focused on developing policy tools to reconcile environmental protection with critical raw materials access across European contexts. More about this topic can be found in a recent article by Correia and Falck (2025) published by Intereconomics, and in the Policy Brief on Community Development Agreements launched at the European Parliament on 13 October 2025.

CIRAN warmly thanks the MINEX Forum organisers and fellow panellists for the invitation and for the engaging discussions on this vital topic for Europe’s strategic autonomy.

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