Between Green Transition and Geopolitical Tensions: The EU’s Role in the DRC-Rwanda Conflict over Critical Minerals

Critical Minerals and the Paradox of the Green Transition

The transition toward renewable energy systems and digital infrastructures requires an unprecedented supply of critical raw materials (CRMs), including cobalt, lithium, nickel and rare earths, which are essential to battery production, electric vehicles and the decarbonization of energy systems. This shift is a cornerstone of the European Union’s ecological transition, yet it illustrates a structural paradox: the ecological ambitions of the wealthier nations depend on extraction processes that frequently reproduce humanitarian crises, socio-environmental degradation and unequal power relations in mineral-rich regions.

The case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, home to over half of known global cobalt reserves and producing nearly 70% of the world’s supply, demonstrates this contradiction. Rather than constituting a foundation for inclusive development, resource wealth interacts with fragile governance, corruption and historical patterns of foreign interference, contributing to land dispossession, forced displacement and exploitative labour practices, including child labour in artisanal mines laws. Environmental impacts, such as water contamination and toxic waste dispersion, further undermine community livelihoods.

In global markets, these dynamics produce an uneven distribution of benefits, where countries like the DRC bear the socio-environmental costs of extraction while industrialized economies secure the most profitable segments of the value chain. SOMO (2023) highlights that current regulatory approaches risk reinforcing this asymmetry, maintaining the DRC in the position of raw materials supplier without opportunities for industrial sovereignty or equitable value redistribution.

Resource Wealth and Conflict in the DRC

The intersection between resource extraction and conflict in eastern DRC must be understood through the interplay of identity-based tensions and territorial fragmentation, weak state presence and competition over areas rich in gold, coltan, tin and tantalum. Since the 1990s, regions such as North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri have hosted over one hundred armed groups, whose alliances, objectives and territorial control shift according to economic and military incentives. Armed groups derive revenue from mining through taxation, extortion, logistical control and illegal cross-border trade, transforming resources into both a cause and instrument of conflict.

Among these groups, the March 23 Movement (M23) is particularly significant. Although its leadership claims to protect Congolese Tutsi and other minorities from persecution, independent investigations demonstrate that its military operations strategically overlap with mining zones and export routes leading to Rwanda. UN Security Council reports indicate that minerals extracted from areas under M23 influence are systematically transported into Rwanda, where they enter official export data despite not being sourced domestically. Statistical discrepancies confirm that Rwanda exports quantities of tantalum, gold and tin that far exceed plausible national production capacity.

While Kigali denies direct involvement, testimonies document logistical assistance, facilitation of trade routes and coordinated military operations between Rwandan personnel and M23 fighters. Amnesty International (2025) further reports severe human rights violations committed by M23, including targeted violence against civilians, forced displacement, unlawful taxation and abuses linked to mining site control. These practices reveal how resource extraction is inseparable from systems of coercion and systematic harm to communities.

In this context, a central question emerges: Can the EU pursue sustainability while relying on extractive systems that reproduce violence?

The EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act: Ambition and Governance Challenges

The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), adopted in 2023, is the EU’s principal strategy for securing access to minerals necessary for the green and digital transitions. It sets targets for extraction, processing and recycling within Europe and promotes partnerships with mineral-rich countries to diversify supply chains and reduce strategic dependence. The regulation simplifies authorization procedures for domestic projects and supports investment frameworks abroad.

However, the CRMA also contains structural limitations that undermine its ethical foundations. Its cooperation with producing countries often takes the form of non-binding Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs), including the recent one signed with Rwanda, which do not provide enforceable sustainability obligations, independent monitoring mechanisms or explicit human rights requirements. This voluntary framework is particularly concerning in contexts where extraction occurs amid corruption, the presence of armed groups or contested territorial control. Furthermore, although the regulation refers to circular economy principles, it does not introduce binding targets to reduce the EU’s overall consumption of raw materials, which risks perpetuating extractive dependency rather than addressing its structural causes.
Finally, due diligence mechanisms within the regulation may not effectively prevent the laundering of Congolese minerals through Rwanda or other neighboring countries. Without verification at the point of origin, traceability risks capturing documentary legitimacy rather than material provenance, leaving open the possibility that conflict-linked minerals enter European markets.

Political and Ethical Implications of the EU-Rwanda Agreement

These governance gaps became especially visible when, in 2024, the European Union signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Rwanda on sustainable raw materials value chains. As part of the cooperation framework, the agreement identifies the mobilization of financial resources for infrastructure as a central priority, aimed at supporting raw material value chains and improving Rwanda’s investment climate. The EU pledged approximately €900 million to Kigali for infrastructure projects related to raw materials, health systems, and climate resilience. Rwanda is internationally promoted as a stable and reliable partner for mineral supply; however, United Nations investigations demonstrate that significant portions of its mineral exports originate from conflict-affected regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This discrepancy places the agreement at the center of an ethical and political dilemma, raising critical questions about the compatibility between the EU’s human rights discourse and its material requirements for the green transition.

Congolese authorities have openly criticized the agreement. President Félix Tshisekedi has accused Rwanda of exploiting Congolese resources and supporting M23 militarily to secure access to mining zones. In early 2025, the European Parliament urged the Commission to suspend the agreement, describing Rwandan exports as “bloodstained” and requesting traceability guarantees, withdrawal of foreign troops from Congolese territory and verification of export origins before cooperation continues. Sanctions were subsequently imposed on individuals and institutions implicated in illicit trade and human rights abuses.
Critics argue that the EU has failed to use the agreement effectively to shape Rwanda’s involvement in the conflict or to condition trade on concrete demilitarization measures. The resulting ambiguity has generated skepticism among Congolese civil society, who perceive a dissonance between European normative claims and their practical implications on the ground. The prioritization of supply stability risks being interpreted as an indication that resource access outweighs human rights protection.

Sustainability, Accountability, and the Risks Ahead

The intersection between the EU’s ecological transition and conflict-linked mineral supply chains raises significant questions concerning the future of global sustainability. If environmental transformation is pursued through governance frameworks that neglect accountability, due diligence and conflict sensitivity, the result may be a green transition built on extractive continuity rather than structural reform.

For the EU, this challenge is not only technical but normative. The credibility of its human rights commitments depends on ensuring that partnerships include traceability guarantees, independent monitoring and enforcement mechanisms capable of preventing mineral laundering through Rwanda or other intermediaries. It also requires considering consumption reduction as a component of sustainability, rather than treating substitution of fossil fuels as sufficient.

The DRC-Rwanda case shows that achieving sustainability requires confronting the political economy of extraction and recognizing that environmental transition and human rights protection are interdependent rather than sequential goals. Without this convergence, the EU risks reinforcing the very dynamics of exploitation, territorial destabilization and violence that undermine its global leadership claims.

Resources

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Amnesty International (2025). DRC: Peace deals fail to end human rights abuses.
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