By Peter Hill, Chair of CTPI
For many countries, the international system of recent decades worked reasonably well. It was imperfect, but it provided relatively open markets, predictable rules and institutions through which countries could manage their differences.
That system is now decaying. The United States is retreating from parts of the architecture it helped to create. China talks the language of multilateralism but has shown limited appetite for sustaining that order on terms others would recognise and its dominance in critical sectors is creating vulnerabilities for those dependent on its technologies.
China accounts for around 94 per cent of permanent magnet production and 89 to 98 per cent of anode material processing, and has demonstrated that it will use those positions. It took one licensing decision in April 2025 to add months to the delivery of European wind farms. Roughly one in five projects slipped. For its part, the United States is securing strategic technologies within its own orbit, and for a European company caught in the middle the exposure is much the same.
So it is unsurprising that there is growing talk of middle powers working together. But ambition risks evaporating in the face of geopolitical and economic realities and time is not on the side of those, including in Europe, often caught in the middle.
Two clocks are running against us.
The geopolitical clock moves at the speed of a signature in a ministry thousands of miles away. The industrial clock moves at the speed of a permitting process, a qualification cycle or the construction of a new plant.
Transformer lead times have tripled, to 120 to 210 weeks. Before a European battery cell manufacturer can buy a tonne of cathode from a new supplier, it must qualify that material: a process of 12 to 24 months, often repeated customer by customer.
The problem at hand is not a lack of ambition or analysis. It is that political intent is not translating into diplomacy, commercial agreements, mines, processing plants, factories and purchase orders. Diversification is failing because procurement and quality teams are asked to carry technical risk on an unfamiliar supplier at higher cost for a resilience objective they did not set. It is the quiet reason non-Chinese material stays out of European battery cells even where it exists.
The problem for governments is that strategies only get us to the starting gate. From years inside the British government, I know how tempting it can be to assume that once a plan is negotiated, the market, machinery of government or some combination of the two will take over.
In critical clean technologies, they will not. And they will certainly not do so at the pace required.
Where should governments start? Work I have been leading at the Clean Technology Partnerships Initiative suggests critical minerals and the industrial layers above them are the most urgent. Mines are tangible and politically visible, which is why many governments are today chasing mining announcements.
But a mine without a committed buyer and a qualification pathway is a stranded asset.
That is a financing problem before it is a diplomatic one. What closes it is a binding, market linked offtake rather than a price floor: governments guarantee that a buyer exists, without setting a price or choosing a technology. That is what makes a project bankable.
Consider Canada. Materials projects are being financed, permitted and built. What many lack is a European order book, because almost every contracted tonne goes to buyers in North America or Japan.
Europe needs deeper partnerships not only with resource rich countries such as Canada and Australia, but with those like Japan and South Korea that hold capabilities elsewhere in the chain. What matters is that every participant has skin in the game: an industrial asset, a buyer, financing, technology, or a share of the de-risking that absorbs the security premium.
This premium is smaller than is generally suggested. For a Canada and Europe battery materials package, for example, the additional capital requirement would be roughly €1.4 to 2bn, with an annual premium of around €120m. Set that against the €27bn Europe spent on battery imports in 2024.
None of this needs new institutions, strategies or funds. Europe already has most of the architecture. What is needed is to point those instruments at a specific supply chain, with specific partners and a deadline, and to give someone responsibility for closing projects at commercial speed.
When leaders gather in New York this month, much will be said about strategic autonomy and cooperation among countries navigating between the major powers. The way to give substance to this is to start modestly: identify a vulnerability, assemble the handful of countries with complementary capabilities, allocate the costs and benefits, and build something.
Political intent must translate into commercial agreements, mines, factories and purchase orders
By Peter Hill, Chair of CTPI
For many countries, the international system of recent decades worked reasonably well. It was imperfect, but it provided relatively open markets, predictable rules and institutions through which countries could manage their differences.
That system is now decaying. The United States is retreating from parts of the architecture it helped to create. China talks the language of multilateralism but has shown limited appetite for sustaining that order on terms others would recognise and its dominance in critical sectors is creating vulnerabilities for those dependent on its technologies.
China accounts for around 94 per cent of permanent magnet production and 89 to 98 per cent of anode material processing, and has demonstrated that it will use those positions. It took one licensing decision in April 2025 to add months to the delivery of European wind farms. Roughly one in five projects slipped. For its part, the United States is securing strategic technologies within its own orbit, and for a European company caught in the middle the exposure is much the same.
So it is unsurprising that there is growing talk of middle powers working together. But ambition risks evaporating in the face of geopolitical and economic realities and time is not on the side of those, including in Europe, often caught in the middle.
Two clocks are running against us.
The geopolitical clock moves at the speed of a signature in a ministry thousands of miles away. The industrial clock moves at the speed of a permitting process, a qualification cycle or the construction of a new plant.
Transformer lead times have tripled, to 120 to 210 weeks. Before a European battery cell manufacturer can buy a tonne of cathode from a new supplier, it must qualify that material: a process of 12 to 24 months, often repeated customer by customer.
The problem at hand is not a lack of ambition or analysis. It is that political intent is not translating into diplomacy, commercial agreements, mines, processing plants, factories and purchase orders. Diversification is failing because procurement and quality teams are asked to carry technical risk on an unfamiliar supplier at higher cost for a resilience objective they did not set. It is the quiet reason non-Chinese material stays out of European battery cells even where it exists.
The problem for governments is that strategies only get us to the starting gate. From years inside the British government, I know how tempting it can be to assume that once a plan is negotiated, the market, machinery of government or some combination of the two will take over.
In critical clean technologies, they will not. And they will certainly not do so at the pace required.
Where should governments start? Work I have been leading at the Clean Technology Partnerships Initiative suggests critical minerals and the industrial layers above them are the most urgent. Mines are tangible and politically visible, which is why many governments are today chasing mining announcements.
But a mine without a committed buyer and a qualification pathway is a stranded asset.
That is a financing problem before it is a diplomatic one. What closes it is a binding, market linked offtake rather than a price floor: governments guarantee that a buyer exists, without setting a price or choosing a technology. That is what makes a project bankable.
Consider Canada. Materials projects are being financed, permitted and built. What many lack is a European order book, because almost every contracted tonne goes to buyers in North America or Japan.
Europe needs deeper partnerships not only with resource rich countries such as Canada and Australia, but with those like Japan and South Korea that hold capabilities elsewhere in the chain. What matters is that every participant has skin in the game: an industrial asset, a buyer, financing, technology, or a share of the de-risking that absorbs the security premium.
This premium is smaller than is generally suggested. For a Canada and Europe battery materials package, for example, the additional capital requirement would be roughly €1.4 to 2bn, with an annual premium of around €120m. Set that against the €27bn Europe spent on battery imports in 2024.
None of this needs new institutions, strategies or funds. Europe already has most of the architecture. What is needed is to point those instruments at a specific supply chain, with specific partners and a deadline, and to give someone responsibility for closing projects at commercial speed.
When leaders gather in New York this month, much will be said about strategic autonomy and cooperation among countries navigating between the major powers. The way to give substance to this is to start modestly: identify a vulnerability, assemble the handful of countries with complementary capabilities, allocate the costs and benefits, and build something.
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