Europe’s Midstream Gap in Critical Raw Materials

This short analytical note frames Europe’s Midstream Gap in Critical Raw Materials as a question of European strategic autonomy, where a capability becomes strategically and financially relevant through alignment with recognised priorities, not the technology alone. Europe’s exposure in critical raw materials is no longer primarily a question of access to resources, but of industrial capacity to refine, separate, convert, and qualify those resources into defence- and dual-use inputs. The midstream layer is where sovereignty is effectively decided, because it is the stage at which raw materials become usable metals, alloys, powders, oxides, and certified components for aerospace, electronics, munitions, and advanced manufacturing. This layer is capital-intensive, slow to scale, highly regulated, and concentrated in a small number of non-allied jurisdictions. As a result, upstream initiatives alone are insufficient to guarantee readiness or resilience. Without adequate midstream capacity, Europe remains vulnerable to supply interruptions even when raw materials are available. The strategic risk is therefore structural rather than cyclical. Why this capability becomes strategically and financially relevant is developed in full in the original DFM publication on DFM Analysis.