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2026-05-20 15:45:00
EIT RawMaterials Summit 2026: Mine-to-Battlefield: Critical Materials and the Future of European Defence Capability
Europe is committing historic levels of capital to defence — but the ability to build, sustain and scale military capability depends on something that rarely features in defence budget debates: the materials inside the systems. From the aluminium in fighter aircraft and the graphite in main battle tanks, to the rare earth elements in missile guidance systems and the gallium in advanced radar and electronic warfare, modern defence hardware is only as strong as the supply chains behind it. NATO’s December 2024 list of 12 defence-critical raw materials made the dependency explicit — and the exposure stark, with China controlling 60–90% of global processing capacity for many of them. Yet Europe remains heavily import-dependent not only at the mine, but across the entire value chain: processing, smelting, advanced materials manufacture, and critical component production such as permanent magnets. This session asks the question that defence and industry leaders can no longer defer — as Europe rearms and accelerates defence-tech development under ReArm Europe, EDIP and rising NATO commitments, how can it build the material resilience to back it up?
Rue Bara 175, 1070 Bruxelles, Belgium, The Egg, Auditorium
RAW MATERIALS
http://eitrmsummit.com/eit-rawmaterials-summit-2026/mine-battlefield-critical-materials-and-future-european-defence
Europe/Brussels
public
Mine-to-Battlefield: Critical Materials and the Future of European Defence Capability
Moderated by
David Eades
