EU-Chile Horizons: Climate Justice for a Shared Strategy on Critical Minerals

Abstract

The European Union has not only raised the need for strategic autonomy, but has also opened up to re-establishing new relationships. One of these relationships in the spotlight is Latin America, which has the highest concentration of critical minerals, key, among other things, for the energy transition of the Union and Latin America itself. However, the instruments of European law have become more flexible beyond Mercosur and the prevailing formalism, and a new cycle of relations is being generated. To a large extent, this adaptation may combine new ways of conceptualizing the role of "strategic for both parties", since European energy autonomy and the business diplomacy experienced by some Latin American countries such as Chile are not mutually exclusive. The Chilean case is paradigmatic of this crossroads, as the country is part of the new wave of natural resource sovereignty, but at the same time it is considering executing the development imaginary together with the geopolitical interests of the European Union.