EU Regulation Conflict Minerals

How can we help to ensure that important minerals such as tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold are sourced responsibly and prevent armed groups in conflict and high-risk areas from financing themselves through the mining of these minerals?

A key measure to ensure the responsible sourcing of important minerals such as tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold and to prevent the financing of armed groups in conflict areas is the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation (EU 2017/821).

This regulation, which entered into force on 8 June 2017 and has been bindingly applied since 1 January 2021, requires companies importing these minerals into the EU to exercise comprehensive due diligence in their supply chain. This means that they must actively verify and ensure that the minerals they import (tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold – often referred to as 3TG) do not contribute to the financing of conflicts or the support of human rights violations in conflict-affected and high-risk areas (CAHRAs). The EU continuously names and updates the list of these conflict-affected and high-risk areas to enable targeted application of the regulation.

The regulation is binding on all EU importers of tin, tantalum, tungsten, their ores and gold. However, these due diligence obligations only apply when certain quantity thresholds are exceeded. These thresholds are set out in a delegated regulation (EU 2019/429) of the Commission of 11 January 2019. This delegated regulation supplements the main regulation by defining the specific thresholds and thus clarifying the scope of application in order to relieve smaller importers of the most burdensome due diligence obligations.

In addition, the delegated regulation lays down the method and criteria for assessing and recognising systems for fulfilling due diligence obligations in the supply chain for tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold. This means that it defines the requirements that industry-wide initiatives or other external verification systems must meet in order for the European Commission to recognise them as effective instruments for compliance with due diligence obligations. This makes it easier for companies to comply with the regulation by allowing them to rely on already established and recognised standards.