“Europe is in a historic economic security crisis, with its industry being dependent on bureaucrats in Beijing signing licences for REEs.

"The EU needs to get together to solve this issue as quickly as possible... call it economic security or not,” said @tobiasgehrke @ecfr

ecfr.eu/article/how-...

-- Ensure firmware/ software updates run through EU-controlled servers and oversight structures
-- Close loopholes that allow circumvention via shell companies or outsourced control functions (FDI screening)
-- Push partners in G7, Global Gateway, and CTIP partners to adopt similar trust standards

Urgent action is required to secure Europe's grid
-- Exclude high-risk vendors from control-capable equipment (NIS2, CSA, CRA)
-- Condition EU funding for grid investments on trusted suppliers (EIB, ECF, RRF)
-- Activate trade defence tools to counter dumped or subsidised grid equipment (TDI)

-- Withholding components or maintenance in a political/trade dispute
-- Locking Europe into Chinese hardware and software, just as the EU will spend hundreds of billions on grid upgrades.

There’s no shortage of ways inverters can be turned into weapons
-- Mapping Europe’s grid and its weak points (maybe quietly sharing such intelligence with Russia?)
-- Remotely disrupting parts of the grid, which could cascade fast (Iberia blackout example)

-- As in so many other sectors, a protected home market, subsidies, and China's scale advantage are the perfect cocktail for massive price cuts
-- Foreign inverter suppliers are effectively barred from China due to cybersecurity rules, while Chinese firms enjoy wide-open access to Europe

-- Chinese suppliers now control roughly 220 GW of Europe’s solar capacity through remotely controllable inverters; more than 80% of new installations are Chinese.
-- Huawei, deemed “high risk” for telecoms, is Europe’s largest inverter supplier.

These devices collect data, receive software and firmware updates, and can be switched or manipulated remotely. Erika Langerová has shown that Chinese researchers already analyse how Western grids fail and which nodes maximise disruption.

America will need lots more rare earths if it wants to break its dependence. Until that appetite is satisfied, there will likely be little room for collaboration. Either Europe starts building its own supply chain or be left with whatever crummies are still on the table when the others are done.

So a US magnet maker is now locking in Solvay’s output, backed by clear government-supported demand.

...European OEMs would not invest in their own supply-chain resilience (despite what unfolded over the last year), and policymakers fail to put meaningful market-shaping instruments on the road at anything close to the required speed.

4. There is a desire to explore joint stockpiling, using their existing national systems. It sounds like a good idea, so not everyone stocks the same stuff. But it would demand a lot of trust and intelligence sharing. Japan may be more open to it, but Europeans surely would be doubting this more.

I'm not sure how this will work for Europe: competition law perhaps?

3. There’s fresh focus on regulating the sale of mines outside home jurisdictions. So if a Western firm owns a mine abroad, governments need to step in before it changes hands (there were recent cases, such as Anglo American's nickel mines in Brazil being sold to Chinese miners).