Europe’s Defence Supply Risk in Tungsten and Titanium
Europe’s defence-industrial vulnerability in critical raw materials lies not primarily in mining, but in the concentration of refining and intermediate processing capacity outside the European Union. Tungsten and titanium—both formally recognised as strategic under the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act and identified by NATO as defence-critical—illustrate how dependence at the midstream stage can translate directly into capability risk. While European downstream industries manufacture munitions, aircraft and missile systems, they rely overwhelmingly on imported tungsten powders and titanium sponge, often sourced from highly concentrated global supply chains dominated by China and other non-EU producers. This analysis examines how processing chokepoints, long certification cycles, and limited domestic refining capacity create structural exposure for European defence programmes, and evaluates the policy, industrial and financial measures required to align raw-material resilience with rearmament and strategic autonomy objectives through 2030.