Environmental and community groups have sued the European Commission over its decision to grant “strategic” status to a lithium mine in northern Portugal.
Non-profit groups Associação Unidos em Defesa de Covas do Barroso (UDCB) – a local residents’ association – and ClientEarth filed the case at the European Court of Justice on Thursday. They allege that the Commission has failed to reconsider its decision to grant special status to Portugal’s Barroso lithium mine project as “detailed evidence” of the project’s environmental, social and safety risks emerged.
Under the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act, the 27-member bloc must carry environmental impact assessments to ensure sustainable secure supply chains of strategic raw materials including lithium, cobalt and nickel within the EU by 2030. The Act, which came into force in 2024, aims to secure Europe’s access to essential materials for the green and digital transitions.
The Barroso lithium mine is one of 47 raw material projects within the EU that the Commission designated as “strategic” in March 2025 after assessing “their contribution to the security of the Union’s supply of strategic raw materials, technical feasibility, sustainable implementation, and cross-border benefits.” The status effectively fast-tracks the development of these projects by providing faster permitting, improved access to financing, and reduced administrative burden.
But Nik Völker from MiningWatch Portugal, an independent monitoring network, said that the move “serves only to justify environmental degradation and harm to local communities, while overlooking lithium’s uncertain economics and Europe’s continued inability to develop a coherent battery value chain.”
