1. By 24 May 2025, each Member State shall draw up a national programme for general exploration targeted at critical raw materials and carrier minerals of critical raw materials. Those national programmes shall be reviewed at least every five years and updated if necessary.
2. The national programmes referred to in paragraph 1 shall include measures to increase available information on the Union’s critical raw material occurrences. They shall include, as appropriate, the following measures:
(a)
mineral mapping at a suitable scale;
(b)
geochemical campaigns, including to establish the chemical compositions of soils, sediments or rocks;
(c)
geoscientific surveys, such as geophysical surveys;
(d)
processing of the data gathered through general exploration, including through the development of predictive maps;
(e)
reprocessing of existing geoscientific survey data to check for unidentified mineral occurrences containing critical raw materials and carrier minerals of critical raw materials.
3. Where a Member State’s geological conditions are so that, with a high degree of certainty, no deposits of critical raw materials or their carrier minerals will be identified through the measures listed in paragraph 2, the national programme referred to in paragraph 1 may consist of scientific evidence to that effect. Such evidence shall be updated, in the context of the regular review of the national programme, to reflect any changes in the list of critical raw materials.
4. Member States shall communicate to the Commission their national programmes referred to in paragraph 1.
5. Member States shall, in their reports submitted pursuant to Article 45, provide information on progress in the implementation of the measures included in their national programmes referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article.
6. Member States shall make maps that show basic information on mineral occurrences containing critical raw materials gathered through the measures set out in the national programmes referred to in paragraph 1 publicly available on a free-access website. That information shall, where applicable, include the classification of the identified occurrences using the United Nations Framework Classification for Resources. More detailed information, including processed geophysical and geochemical data at appropriate resolution and large scale geological mapping, shall be made available upon request.
The Commission may adopt implementing acts establishing a template for making available the information referred to in the first subparagraph of this paragraph. The template may indicate how the information referred to in the first subparagraph of this paragraph shall be expressed. Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the advisory procedure referred to in Article 39(2).
7. Taking into consideration existing cooperation on general exploration, the standing subgroup referred to in Article 36(8), point (c) shall discuss the national programmes referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article and their implementation, including at least:
(a)
the potential for cooperation, including on exploration of cross-border mineral occurrences and common geological formations;
(b)
best practices related to the measures listed in paragraph 2;
(c)
the possibility to create an integrated database for storing the results of the national programmes referred to in paragraph 1.
CHAPTER 4
RISK MONITORING AND MITIGATION