Foreign investors like Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez and former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada are involved in extracting critical raw materials in Germany. Despite the boom, there are no rules ensuring the resources benefit the EU economy. Economists call for greater state control over exports.
Germany aims to reduce its dependency on imports of critical raw materials like lithium, copper, and tin, as demand rises for electric mobility and technology. The country currently imports 100 percent of its lithium. More than 50 companies have secured licenses for over 140 fields, with two-thirds involving foreign or non-EU shareholders.
Three prominent investors illustrate the international entanglements. Florentino Pérez, 78-year-old president of Real Madrid and head of the ACS group with an estimated fortune of 5 billion euros, is the largest shareholder in the Australian company Vulcan Energy via ACS. This plans lithium extraction in the Upper Rhine Graben near Landau in the Palatinate, with a capacity of tens of thousands of tons annually. ACS subsidiary Hochtief handles construction work. ACS has increased its revenue fifteenfold since 2000 to 41.6 billion euros.
Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, 95-year-old former Bolivian president (1993-1997, 2002-2003), who fled in 2003 after protests and agreed to a 10 million US dollar compensation in 2023, was the majority shareholder of Panamanian Minera S.A. in 2017. This owns KSL Kupferschiefer Lausitz GmbH, which aims to mine over 100 million tons of copper ore in Spremberg-Graustein-Schleife (Brandenburg). So far, 45 million euros have been invested. CEO Mauricio Balcazar is Lozada's son-in-law and former minister. Local residents fear groundwater contamination and subsidence; KSL has opened a shop in Spremberg.
Titus Gebel, a system critic from Monaco who promotes free private cities, invests via a Liechtenstein holding in Deutsche Flussspat GmbH. This plans to reopen the Käfersteige mine in Pforzheim (Baden-Württemberg) from 2028 for fluorspar, a critical mineral for electronics and textiles. Gebel states: "I explicitly support strengthening our own raw material security."
DIW president Marcel Fratzscher calls for a veto right on exports in conflicts: "The federal government should allow foreign companies to extract critical raw materials here, but have a veto right on their export." The EU targets 10 percent domestic production by 2030, but without processing capacities, resources risk going to the world market, as with the tin mining of Saxore Bergbau in Saxony, linked to Australian-Chinese ties.
The KfW raw materials fund, launched in November 2025, supports projects like Vulcan with 354 million euros, on the condition that resources benefit Europe.