Romania National Strategy for Non-Energy Mineral Resources 2025-2035 (HG 1464/2024)

Mechanism

HG 1464/2024 is a programmatic public-policy decision (not a regulatory statute) that establishes Romania's general development lines, strategic objectives, and proposed measures for the non-energy mineral-resources sector over 2025-2035. As a Government Decision (Hotărâre de Guvern), it binds line ministries and subordinate agencies (notably the National Agency for Mineral Resources / ANRM and the geological survey IGR) to align their operational programmes with the strategy's priorities, and provides the policy authority under which Romania interfaces with the EU CRMA framework.

The strategy's announced action lines:

• Geological research, inventory and evaluation of critical and

strategic raw materials, including a reassessment of historical reserves and a programme to map secondary resources (mine waste dumps, tailings ponds).

• Exploitation and advanced processing with an emphasis on

domestic value-add and capture of refining margin.

• Environmental restoration and socio-economic regeneration of

mining-area communities, addressing the closure legacy of post-1989 Romanian mining (Roșia Montană moratorium, Cupru Min divestment etc.).

• Superior valorisation of secondary resources from waste dumps and

tailings ponds — directly relevant to the Verde Magnesium project, which recovers magnesium from historical tailings.

• Geothermal water utilisation and spa-tourism diversification —

unusual inclusions for a critical-minerals strategy that reflect Romania's specific endowment.

The strategy is structurally peer of Spain's Plan de Acción de las Materias Primas Minerales 2025-2029 (filed 2025-03-11), Greece Law 5164/2024 on Strategic Flagship Investments (filed 2024-12-12), and sits downstream of the EU CRMA Regulation 2024/1252 entry-into-force.

Downstream implications

• Foundational authority for the three Romanian CRMA Strategic Projects

approved by the EU Commission on 25 March 2025 (Euro Sun Mining gold/copper at Rovina, Salrom salt + lithium, Verde Magnesium magnesium-from-tailings) totalling ~€615m of EU-recognised investment.

• Parent policy for the announced Romanian Mining Law amendment

package allowing reopening of closed mines and updating the licensing framework — when that bill is filed, it should responds_to this slug.

• Signal of Romanian alignment with the EU CRMA 2030 benchmarks

(10% extraction, 40% processing, 15% recycling, ≤65% single-third-country dependence per strategic raw material).

• Increases regional Central-and-Eastern-European critical-minerals

policy density alongside Czech and Polish initiatives, completing the V4+RO CEE CRM cohort within the EU.

Open questions

• Quantitative budget allocations per axis are programmatic rather than

appropriated — the implementing operational programmes (under the 2028-2034 EU budget cycle and Romania's MFF national envelope) will determine the real fiscal scale.

• Whether the planned Mining Law amendment will be tabled in the

2025-2026 parliamentary session — and whether it will include fast-track licensing provisions for CRMA Strategic Projects equivalent to Greece's Strategic Flagship Investments regime.

• Whether ANRM will be reorganised or strengthened as part of the

strategy's institutional axis.