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The plan is structured around four pillars and 30+ inter-departmental measures:
1. Regulatory pillar — modernised Mining Law with heightened environmental standards; updated financial guarantee frameworks for mine restoration; streamlined permitting for strategic CRM projects aligned with EU CRMA Article 11 designation procedures. 2. Sectoral pillar — flagship measure is the first National Mining Exploration Programme in Spanish democracy, mapping resource potential across 1,000+ historical tailings ponds and spoil heaps for recovery of lithium, nickel, cobalt, rare earths, copper, fluorite, strontium, and sepiolite. Targets both primary deposits and secondary recovery from existing mining waste — the latter being a CRM-strategic approach to short-cycle supply uplift. 3. Transversal/cross-cutting pillar — €400m PRTR (Plan de Recuperación, Transformación y Resiliencia / Spain's NextGenerationEU national recovery plan) allocation for restoration of mining-affected areas; circular-economy / recycling integration; traceability framework. 4. R&D+I pillar — research funding for processing/refining technology, including coordination with CENIM-CSIC and other national research institutes.
Joan Groizard, Secretary of State for Energy, framed the approach as "360-degree management" emphasising recycling, traceability and sustainable restoration alongside primary extraction.
vehicle through which EU CRMA strategic-project designations (under Regulation 2024/1252) will be supported domestically; Spain is one of seven Member States hosting EU-designated strategic projects in the first 2025-03-25 designation round.
industrial-policy action in the IPTM register (after PERTE Chip 2022 and Plan Auto 2030 2025); first ES CRM-specific national instrument and a structural peer of France Critical Metals Fund and Germany Microelectronics Strategy in the Western industrial-policy stack.
Programme's focus on 1,000+ historical waste sites is a comparatively fast supply uplift path; sets a template other EU Member States with legacy mining footprints (Portugal, Sweden, Poland) may emulate under CRMA.
the plan to the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility milestones, making delivery progress visible in EU semester reporting.
the borrador (draft) version released for consultation 11-12 March 2025.
will directly support (first designation round closed 2025-03-25).
with its own BOE publication required before regulatory measures bind.
Galicia, Castilla y León, Andalucía host most legacy mining sites).