The European Union has been urged to clamp down on illegal imports of conflict minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) after evidence was found that current regulations had been breached.
The advocacy group Global Witness (GW) said there remained a “high risk” of the EU’s mineral imports being used to fund militias and state repression in several countries.
The European bloc has adopted legislation to prevent armed groups benefiting from the trade of tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold, which are used in electronics and to manufacture clean-energy technologies.
The EU’s Conflict Minerals Regulation came into full force in 2021, imposing due-diligence checks on companies importing the minerals from conflict-affected countries. Member states are responsible for enforcing checks and imposing sanctions if rules are violated.
But in a recent review, the EU Commission admitted that an external study had found “limited impacts among local stakeholders”. It also found “delays” and “implementation challenges”.
Separately, researchers at the Antwerp-based International Peace Information Service found the regulation’s impact had been “almost negligible, with illicit mineral trade continuing to fund conflicts”.
GW traced the supply chain of a European trader sourcing minerals from eastern DRC, where militias involved in the killing and rape of civilians were using the trade in minerals to fund their activities.
Documents obtained by the human rights organisation, and seen by the Guardian, appeared to show that a supplier sourced wolframite, a tungsten ore, from Nzibira in South Kivu province in early 2023 and passed it on to a European buyer, Traxys Europe, which rejected the allegations.
Traxys said it was “firmly committed to work only with responsible and conflict-free supply chains” and “invests very considerable effort and resources” to do so.
Congolese government officials told GW that during 2023 minerals from unvalidated mines were being falsely tagged as responsibly sourced.
GW claims that the EU regulation is not being properly enforced at a time when the bloc is seeking to shore up supplies of critical minerals for the transition to more sustainable energy.
Emily Stewart, head of policy at GW, said: “The EU has put this regulation in place in order to stop the importation of conflict minerals. But there isn’t sufficient effort to ensure that it is working.
“The regulation is allowing companies not to bother with due diligence because it appears that there are no proper checks on what they are doing, nor consequences for their activities.”
The organisation urged the EU to step up enforcement of the law, improve the transparency of imports and impose sanctions on firms that failed to comply.
Safanto Bulongo, of the Congolese organisation Max Impact, which monitors governance around natural resources, said nothing had changed in DRC since the regulation came into force.
“The EU’s regulation was stillborn; it is not known about in the DRC,” he said. “There are no efforts to improve the situation. Companies from the global north are not taking due diligence seriously – the impact is war.”
If the EU was serious about enforcing robust regulations, it should impose checks on manufactured goods since DRC minerals went to Asia before entering the Europe as part of electronic components, Bulongo added.
Last month, the DRC government filed a criminal complaint against Apple in France and Belgium, accusing the company of using conflict minerals laundered through international supply chains. Apple rejected the allegations and said it had told suppliers to stop sourcing these minerals from DRC and Rwanda.
Olof Gill, a spokesperson for the European Commission, said implementation of the regulation was being closely monitoring by member states, “which have regularly notified companies of corrective measures they need to take to meet their obligations under the law.
“The EU’s review concluded it wasn’t necessary to impose a more uniform sanction system at this stage,” he said. “We would encourage NGOs to inform responsible [member states] of any infringements of the regulation, so appropriate action can be taken.”
