Under the title “Spring Raw Materials Innovation Summit”, Santiago Cuesta López, general director of the ISMC cluster, led this first conference of the 2023, in which in addition to “attracting experts and leading companies to the province, we presented new opportunities for European growth towards sustainable mining”.

During the conference, the relative progress of some of the international reference projects in which the ISMC projects in which the cluster is involved. Projects such as RESILEX, C-SINK, S34I and MADITRACE, leading in the generation of technologies that facilitate the mining of strategic resources with a low environmental impact, which together environmental impact, which together mobilise a total of more than 40 million euros, where León will be an essential axis.

The structure of the day facilitated the creation of a space for strategic dialogue between the attendees, with the aim of activating and boosting the mining sector and its associated services, from the regions to Europe. Through the European Essential Raw Materials Act, a key European initiative consolidated in March 2023, the framework has been established to ensure a secure and sustainable supply of essential raw materials” commented Cuesta López during one of his speeches, “and this is where the cluster comes in, acting as a catalyst among sector leaders to ensure secure and sustainable supply chains for the green and digital future of the European Union”.

During the conference, the urgency of Europe’s dependence on imports, often from quasi-monopolistic third-party suppliers, was highlighted. often from quasi-monopolistic suppliers in third countries, and Cuesta López underlined that “we need to mitigate the We need to mitigate the supply risks related to these strategic dependencies to improve Europe’s economic resilience. to improve Europe’s economic resilience, as evidenced by the shortages following the Covid-19-19 conflict. shortages after the Covid-19 conflict and the energy crisis after the Russian invasion of Ukraine”.