- Members of the European Parliament have voted for the European Union to suspend its memorandum of understanding with Rwanda on mineral purchases.
- According to U.N. experts, Rwanda is mixing its own minerals with those from the M23-controlled region of Rubaya in its larger neighbor, the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- European parliamentarians have criticized the EU for failing to take adequate measures to address the crisis in the DRC.
- Environmentalists say China and other countries importing minerals like coltan should follow the EU legislators’ example and that the DRC must tackle corruption and strengthen its governance of the mining sector.
On Feb. 13, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to suspend a cooperation agreement with Rwanda on a trio of minerals critical to the clean energy transition, citing their links to the ongoing violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The so-called 3T minerals — tin, tungsten, tantalum — are mined in large volumes in the DRC’s eastern provinces of North and South Kivu. Since late January 2025, a rebel group known as M23, widely believed to be backed by Rwanda, has seized key parts of the region, including the two provincial capitals, Goma and Bukavu, with the mineral trade said to be fueling the violence, according to a December 2024 report by a U.N. expert group.
“Parliament regrets the European Union’s failure to take appropriate measures to address the crisis and pressure Rwanda to end its support for M23,” the European Parliament said in a statement issued after its Feb. 13 vote. It called on the EU Commission and Council “to immediately suspend the EU Memorandum of Understanding on Sustainable Raw Materials Value Chains with Rwanda, until the country ceases all interference in the DRC, including exporting minerals mined from M23-controlled areas.”
French MEP Thierry Mariani, who has spoken out about the heavy toll of persistent instability in the DRC — driven in large part by the illicit exploitation of natural resources and responsible for at least 6 million deaths over nearly 30 years — the EU Parliament’s decision demands concrete action from the EU.
“It’s only a resolution! Now it has to be followed by concrete action from the European Commission … and that’s not easy,” Mariani told media.
According to Emmanuel Umpula, head of the DRC-based NGO Afrewatch, the EU Parliament’s vote could be a significant opportunity for the DRC. He said the country should seek commitments from the EU and countries such as China, Japan and Qatar to discourage the use of violence as a means of accessing minerals.
Jean-Claude Okende, a Congolese civil society activist advocating for transparency in the mining industry, said that without such commitments, these recipient countries, and Rwanda — credibly accused of exporting minerals sourced in the eastern DRC — will continue to benefit from minerals linked to the conflicts that have devastated his country. “China must start sourcing responsibly. We also need to move forward [as with the EU] with China. The DRC must ask what measures China will take as well,” Okende said.
The U.N. expert group’s report states that in 2024, “the AFC-M23 coalition controlled trading centers in Rubaya and Mushaki, as well as mineral transport routes from Rubaya to Rwanda, where Rubaya minerals were mixed with Rwandan production.”
Rubaya is the largest reserve of 3T minerals in Africa’s Great Lakes region. “This constitutes the most significant contamination of supply chains with ineligible ‘3T’ minerals … recorded in the Great Lakes region over the past decade,” the report says.
Rwanda has continued to deny any involvement in the illicit mineral trade. Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who accuses the DRC of collaborating with groups that threaten Rwanda’s security, told Jeune Afrique magazine that, faced with a choice between an existential threat and the risk of sanctions, he would “aim his weapons at the existential threat as if the other did not exist.”
Fighting corruption and poverty
Seen as a symbolic victory for the DRC, the MEPs’ vote also serves as a critique of mining and environmental governance in the country. One of the largest countries on Earth, the DRC spans 2.3 million square kilometers (905,000 square miles) and is home to 93 million people, of whom nearly three in four live on less than $2.15 per day.
Armed groups thrive in this context of persistent rural poverty, where impoverished farmers are easily recruited, while natural resources continue to provide a steady source of financing for these groups. Bintou Keita, head of the U.N. mission the DRC, said M23 earns $300,000 per month from 3T minerals in Rubaya.
To break the cycle of violence around mining sites, Umpula called for better governance of natural resources and stronger state authority over the national territory. This means “ensuring that the exploitation of the DRC’s natural resources serves the interests of the population. We must work to improve social conditions because, too often, poverty persists in the very areas where resources are extracted. Significant investment in these regions is essential to break the cycle of conflict,” he said.
The DRC is a member of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), which requires the disclosure of payments received by public authorities and those made to mining operators. But its mining sector remains largely opaque.
Against this backdrop, the DRC’s minister of mines issued an order on Feb. 12 classifying mining sites in North and South Kivu provinces as “red” zones for a renewable six-month period. This designation applies to “all mining sites” in the Masisi territory (Rubaya sector) and the Kalehe territory (Nyamibwe sector). The classification imposes stricter controls on minerals from these areas as part of the 3T mineral certification process.
Okende said this is a crucial step in improving governance. “The DRC must optimize this classification by implementing internal measures to enforce its decision and ensure that all mining sites currently controlled by rebels are properly regulated. We need concrete actions that demonstrate to the international community that the DRC is a responsible player,” he said.
Banner image: Miners waiting for an interview at a mining site in South Kivu in 2012. Image by Sasha Lezhnev/Enough Project via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
A version of this story was first published here in French on Feb. 20, 2025.
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