Environmental Groups Sue EU Over Controversial Lithium Mine in Portugal

The groups are asking the European Court of Justice to annul the European Commission’s decision to grant the lithium mine in northern Portugal “strategic” status and clarify the Commission’s obligations under the Critical Raw Materials Act.

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Environmental and community groups have sued the European Commission over its decision to grant “strategic” status to a lithium mine in northern Portugal.

Non-profit groups Associação Unidos em Defesa de Covas do Barroso (UDCB) – a local residents’ association – and ClientEarth filed the case at the European Court of Justice on Thursday. They allege that the Commission has failed to reconsider its decision to grant special status to Portugal’s Barroso lithium mine project as “detailed evidence” of the project’s environmental, social and safety risks emerged.

Under the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act, the 27-member bloc must carry environmental impact assessments to ensure sustainable secure supply chains of strategic raw materials including lithium, cobalt and nickel within the EU by 2030. The Act, which came into force in 2024, aims to secure Europe’s access to essential materials for the green and digital transitions.

The Barroso lithium mine is one of 47 raw material projects within the EU that the Commission designated as “strategic” in March 2025 after assessing “their contribution to the security of the Union’s supply of strategic raw materials, technical feasibility, sustainable implementation, and cross-border benefits.” The status effectively fast-tracks the development of these projects by providing faster permitting, improved access to financing, and reduced administrative burden.

But Nik Völker from MiningWatch Portugal, an independent monitoring network, said that the move “serves only to justify environmental degradation and harm to local communities, while overlooking lithium’s uncertain economics and Europe’s continued inability to develop a coherent battery value chain.”

MiningWatch Portugal, UDCB and ClientEarth first requested the Commission to remove the Barroso lithium mining project from its list last June. The Commission rejected their request in November, stressing that its role under the Critical Raw Materials Act does not include verifying full compliance with EU environmental law and that associated issues, from water scarcity to biodiversity and tailings safety, are Portugal’s responsibility.

UDCB and ClientEarth are now asking the EU’s top court to annul the Commission’s decision and clarify its obligations under the Critical Raw Materials Act. “We are going to court because the Commission’s decision undermines fundamental EU legal principles. Labelling a project ‘strategic’ and in the public interest while turning a blind eye to well-documented risks to water, ecosystems, human health and local livelihoods is simply unacceptable. The energy transition must be based on law, science and justice – not political shortcuts that turn rural regions into sacrifice zones,” the groups said.

The Portugese government last month awarded 110 million euros (US$130 million) to the mining project, which is developed by London-listed company Savannah Resources. With over 39 million metric tons of spodumene deposit – a lithium-bearing mineral – northern Barroso is home to the largest such deposit in Europe.

Lithium, a critical metal widely used in electric vehicles, portable electronics like phones and laptops, and grid energy storage, is primarily sourced through brine mining. This process involves pumping mineral-rich saltwater from underground aquifers into massive surface ponds for evaporation.

While cost-effective, this method is exceptionally water-intensive and poses severe contamination risks to local supplies. It can cause local water tables to drop and risks the leakage of toxic processing chemicals into the surrounding ecosystem, threatening both human communities and regional biodiversity.

Featured image: Transparency International EU Office/Flickr.

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