Euromines, the European Association of Mining Industries, Metal Ores & Industrial Minerals, was founded in 1996 and represents Europe's metals and minerals mining industry, bringing together companies, national federations and associated members.
Its membership includes both large and small companies, as well as their subsidiaries in Europe and other parts of the world, collectively employing more than 350,000 people. These members produce over 54 different metals and minerals. For certain metals and minerals, Europe is among the worldâÂÂs leading producers.
The association facilitates dialogue between the industry and European Union institutions and serves as a network for cooperation and information exchange across the sector in Europe. It provides a formal platform through which members assess the impact of European and international policies and legislation on the industry and develop common positions and actions. The association also maintains contacts with the global mining community.
The association is based in Brussels. Its working committees and groups meet regularly throughout the year. Its main areas of policy focus include environment, health and safety, sustainability, energy and climate change, magnesite and magnesia and raw materials.
The extractive industry contributes to sustainable development by integrating economic growth with environmental protection, social progress and effective governance.
Euromines' members have set forth and adhere to a series of guidelines for sustainable development in the European mining sector. These guidelines are based on the precept that access to and use of minerals and metals are essential to a sustainable society, to societyâÂÂs well-being and to economic development.
The Guidelines for Sustainable Development state:
The economic aspect
The environmental aspect
The social aspect
At the end of 2008 the European Commission published its Communication. Realizing it needed to address this very important issue at the highest level in order ensure security of raw material supply for its economic growth, Europe proposed a whole host of measures to improve its raw materials supply.
Euromines welcomed this initiative wholeheartedly since in the past years a whole array of legislative measures and the lack of public awareness in Europe had made access to raw materials for the extractive industry as well as for the downstream industry more and more difficult and, at the best of times, time consuming.
The availability and affordability of minerals are therefore important considerations for the competitiveness of much of European industry. The effect of the recent rapid increase in global demand for metals and metal ores, for example, clearly demonstrates the impact of constraining supplies of raw materials - price increases and bottlenecks in supplies â leading in some cases to production shutting down in Europe.