Hamlets in Spain and Portugal Unite Against Europe’s Rush for Strategic Minerals

Luis Velasco and Yolanda Clemente, Alconchel, El País, 20/09/2025
Translated by Tlaxcala

Residents share strategies to prevent the opening of mines that would destroy their environment and way of life: “We are a territory sacrificed to economic interests.”

Graffiti against mines on a European investment sign for rural development, in Alconchel (Badajoz).

Photo Luis Velasco

The Iberian Peninsula has become a key piece in Europe’s strategy for obtaining essential minerals used to manufacture everything from batteries to ammunition.
Of the 60 projects approved by Brussels, 11 are located in municipalities across Spain and Portugal, where fear of new extractivist mines has sparked a grassroots alliance to defend their ways of life.

In Assumar, a Portuguese village of 600 inhabitants located 20 kilometers from the border with southern Extremadura, the silence is broken only by four workers standing on scaffolding as they repair a façade. One of them climbs down slowly when asked about critical minerals in the Alentejo region. “There was a mine a few years ago. They say they’re exploring again, but I don’t know anything,” he types into Google Translate.

Rumors of these explorations cross the Guadiana River into the plains of the Olivenza region (Badajoz), where locals are more familiar with the European plan to extract substances such as lithium, tungsten, or rare earths.
Rubén Báez, 51, coordinator of the anti-mining platform, accuses the company Atalaya Mining — heir to the rights of the Riotinto mine in Huelva — of carrying out illegal drilling on land protected by the Natura 2000 Network.
He says by phone that “it’s normal” that people on the other side of the border aren’t aware of the explorations:
“No administration explains anything. It’s the same company trying to build a mining belt from Aguablanca to Jerez de los Caballeros.”

The 2021 expropriation order served on a resident of Alconchel (population 1,600) to search for gold and copper on his property revealed the truth in all its details: institutional silence, stealthy drilling, and alleged legal leniency in environmental impact reports.
There is little shade to shelter from the 39°C summer heat in this hamlet of white houses and red roofs. The terrace of Bar La Piscina becomes the best refuge from the sun.
Eli Correa, a 33-year-old councilor from the Popular Party, and José María, a 44-year-old cattle rancher, remember that moment.
“If it hadn’t been for the attempted expropriation, we would never have learned about Atalaya’s plans,” says Correa.

 

Explorations Underway, Not Yet Declared Strategic

The splashing of children in Alconchel’s swimming pool accompanies the councilor’s concerns:
“I don’t want to live with a mine a hundred meters from my house. Nor do I want the water we all depend on here to be polluted. I want my town to develop, but not at any cost.”

The lack of information — as in Assumar — led José María to walk across the dehesa [communal woodland pasture] that sustains the villages in this border region with Portugal, long afflicted by depopulation and unemployment.
“We brought the exact coordinates and photos of the drilling sites to the town hall (PSOE). They only had permission for one property, but they used it as an excuse to enter others,” he claims.
José María says Atalaya Mining was fined €4,000 by the Guadiana River Basin Authority (CHD) for allegedly illegal drilling.

The company told this newspaper that it has no intention of declaring the project strategic, and that all exploration campaigns carried out since 2021 have “all the necessary permits,” being the only activity in the area “verified by numerous official inspections.”
They add that these drills are “minimally invasive and environmentally respectful.”
According to Báez, however, the company continues to carry out surveys under a license that has already expired.
“As soon as they can declare it strategic, they will,” the coordinator says flatly.

The regional government, led by María Guardiola of the Popular Party in coalition with Vox, declined to comment on the environmental protection of this land or on the drilling permits.
On its website, the Junta de Extremadura presents mining as an opportunity to “promote economic growth” in the region, where there are “more than 1,000 indicators” of potentially viable projects.
In the Sierra de Gata (Cáceres), seven new excavation projects to extract tin and lithium — both strategic raw materials — are already under evaluation, as well as in the Badajoz towns of Villanueva del Fresno and Barcarrota.

Sources from the Ministry for Ecological Transition explain that all mining initiatives must undergo the corresponding environmental assessment, during which objections may be submitted, noting that except for the Aguablanca strategic project, “the rest of the Extremaduran projects fall under regional jurisdiction.”
They add that there must be a “public information” phase so that anyone can “express possible concerns.”
The Olivenza Region Without Mines platform, which includes more than 100 members, says it has not had access to any information whatsoever.

Martín, a 52-year-old lawyer, shows photos taken on the neighboring land from his family estate in Táliga (population 660, Badajoz). The pictures show drilling rigs, a water pond, and scattered rocks.
“They entered without a permit from the town hall, in secret, like other times,” he says. “They act with the same impunity as in Mississippi Burning and force you to confront the workers. If everything is in order, why do they hide?” he asks.
According to Báez, the Táliga council has begun proceedings to impose a fine on the company following a SEPRONA (environmental police) inspection:
“The Directorate-General for Industry, Energy and Mines says the explorations are legal under their regulations, but they ignore zoning laws because, they claim, it’s not their responsibility.”

Fear Across the Peninsula

The fear that Europe’s goal of reducing dependence on countries like China will justify future mining projects is spreading across the peninsula.
It has unsettled hundreds of scattered towns and hamlets on both sides of the border — from the mountains of Galicia and northern Portugal to the valleys of Castile and León and all the way down to Andalusia.
This anxiety led to the creation, in 2023, of the Iberian Mining Observatory (MINOB), where the Olivenza platform and other Spanish and Portuguese villages seek legal support to curb the extractivist fever.

 

The Iberian Peninsula: A Zone for Rare Mineral Exploitation

Joam Evans, MINOB’s coordinator, answers the phone from Galicia, where metal mining threatens, according to him, the livelihoods of more than a thousand shellfish-harvesting families.
He says the European Commission and the Spanish Ministry cited reasons of “security and defense” to deny access to the environmental impact reports of strategic projects requested earlier this year.
Evans points to a shift in the official narrative:
“The green transition is outdated. Now they speak of the need for rearmament. The two tungsten mines — a material used to make ammunition and armor — have a disastrous record of labor rights violations and corruption.”

Adriana Espinosa, a mining expert at MINOB and a member of Friends of the Earth, also criticizes the European plan.
“We are not going to depend less on China, nor will imports from the Global South decrease because of these 60 strategic projects,” she insists.
Espinosa also denounces that local groups are given “too little time” to analyze the technical jargon of the environmental reports:
“We demand transparency from Europe, from the Spanish government, and from the autonomous regions,” she emphasizes.

 

Where Are Strategic Minerals Used?
Percentages indicate the proportion by weight of the mineral in the total weight of the device.
Source: Visual Capitalist, SFA Oxford, UN Environment. El País.

 

Carla Gomes, 43, speaks from Covas do Barroso, a hamlet of 350 inhabitants in the municipality of Boticas, northern Portugal.
Residents have been fighting since 2018 to stop “Europe’s largest open-pit lithium mine,” now declared strategic by Brussels, which has rendered agricultural land unusable, according to Gomes.
They have encountered the same institutional opacity as their counterparts in Olivenza:
“The Portuguese government never informed us about the exploration permits. What exists is a project with no environmental or social guarantees,” Gomes says over the phone.

The local citizens’ platform that Gomes belongs to is also part of MINOB, which is holding its annual meeting this October in Covas do Barroso.
“We share strategies, but above all the same feeling — that we are a territory sacrificed for economic and political interests,” she says of the coordination with Spanish villages.

 

Demonstrations against the lithium mine in Covas do Barroso, Portugal,  and against the government decree of administrative servitude for one year authorizing the Savannah company to expropriate private land
More photos

The Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition insists that mining activity “can be a very important tool against depopulation.”
Spain’s national plan, approved in 2022, aims to open more mines in response to the “exponential demand” for strategic raw materials expected in the coming years.

Night cools the air in Olivenza (population 12,000, Badajoz).
Emilio, Susan, and Quini — three teachers who belong to the local anti-mining platform — talk over a cold beer and some nuts.
An idea hovers in the air: Extremadura is everyone else’s pantry.
“Europe wants what we have here,” says Susan.
Quini picks up the thread: “They’re going to mortgage the future of many generations.”
Emilio sums it up before paying the bill:
“They see us as a cow to be milked. People live here. We have to fight for the life of our region. If you don’t fight for this, what will you fight for?”