The letter highlights Rwanda’s role in fuelling violence and exploitation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and calls for the EU to align its actions with its human rights and sustainability commitments.
While the EU expresses concern over Rwanda’s involvement in destabilizing the DRC, it is simultaneously strengthening ties with Rwanda through an agreement that risks undermining its own commitments to peace and human rights. In February 2024, the EU signed the MoU, which focuses on sourcing critical minerals like tantalum, tungsten, and niobium. However, these minerals are largely mined in the war-torn region of Eastern Congo, where the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group (amongst others) profits from illicit extraction.
A Wake-Up Call for the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Policy
The EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), adopted in 2023, aims to secure minerals for the green transition but fails to address the human rights risks of sourcing from conflict-affected and politically fragile regions. The crisis in Rwanda is a wake-up call: Europe’s push for supply security cannot come at the expense of responsible sourcing.
The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), set to take effect in 2026, is meant to strengthen corporate accountability, but economic and political pressures could weaken its enforcement. Meanwhile, the EU’s existing 3TGold due diligence legislation has proven ineffective, as research by PAX and others has shown, casting further doubt on the EU’s ability to ensure responsible sourcing.
Together with other civil society organizations, we stress that the CRMA needs stronger safeguards and cannot rely solely on the CSDDD. In our work on the CSDDD, we have emphasized the need for heightened due diligence in conflict-affected and high-risk areas—an issue just as relevant to the CRMA. Without such safeguards, Europe’s green transition risks reinforcing, rather than dismantling, conflict-linked supply chains.
Civil Society’s Call to Action
In response to recent developments in the DRC, the letter signed by PAX and other NGOs urges the EU to cancel the MoU with Rwanda and freeze any mineral-related projects under the CRMA that involve Rwanda. These steps are necessary to prevent further complicity in Rwanda’s role in fuelling violence in the DRC and to ensure that European trade does not contribute to conflict.
The choice now lies with the European Commission: uphold its values or remain complicit in a system that fuels violence in Congo. We call on the EU to take immediate and decisive action to protect the DRC and its people, ensuring that European trade does not fund conflict.