European integration and the quest for access to external natural resources, 1945-2015.

The European union (EU) is facing many challenges, including the the risk of losing access to imports of natural resources that are vital for the operations of European industries. The Commission has launched the Raw Materials Initiative to develop new policies and solutions to address competition and rising economic nationalism in producer countries. But in fact, the EU countries have faced similar challenges on numerous occasions in the past, but the costly lessons have often been forgotten. This project has studied the EU's quest to secure its supply of raw materials from external sources. It has examined how this influenced the integration process from 1945 until the present, and how the EU subsequently has sought to shape its external environment in order facilitate its access to these resources. The project particularly studied how financial compensation arrangements for raw materials have been built into multilateral conventions entered into by the EU and its former colonies, the linkages between development policy, FDI and supply security policy, the EU as an actor in resource related disputes in the WTO, but also the attempt to establish a common European policy on stockpiling of oil, and the ambitions to extract Deep Sea Minerals and to diversify the supply of minerals crucial for the Green Shift.

Prosjektet har bidratt med økt kunnskap om EUs politikk rettet mot å sikre tilgangen på naturressurser, både gjennom retningslinjer for oppbygging av oljelager, utviklingen av en aktiv politikk for anskaffelse av mineraler fra tidligere kolonier, forsøket på å påvirke det globale regimet for mineraler fra havbunnen, samt håndhevelsen av internasjonale regler mot begrensinger på eksport av sjeldne jordmineraler. Det har videre skapt grobunn for utviklingen av flere nye forskningsprosjekter som vil fortsette i årene fremover.

A specter is apparently haunting Europe - the threat of losing access to the natural resources which feeds its industries. The European Union (EU) in 2008 launched the Raw Materials Initiative, an ambitious program to deal with the "critical dependence of the EU" on raw materials that are "crucial to the sound functioning of the EU´s economy". The European Commission is touting this undertaking as a bold new departure for the EU and a direct response to recent political tensions and increasing competition in commodity markets. Despite the dire warnings currently emanating from Brussels, the EU has in fact faced, and overcome, similar challenges on numerous occasions since the beginnings of the European integration process. One reason these lessons of the past have been neglected, may be because the history of the EU often is told as the story of a one-way street toward "ever closer union," driven by both the desire for peace after the Second World War, and the need to rationalize the use of its internal resources to rebuild the continent. This project will take a new approach by looking at the EU's quest to secure its supply of raw materials from external sources. It will examine how this influenced the integration process from 1945 until the present, and how the EU subsequently has sought to shape its external environment in order facilitate its access to these resources.