To address these issues, the Commission notably launched the Raw Materials Initiative in November 2008 and a detailed analysis of the demand and potential scarcity of key raw materials in June 2010.

It provides for a voluntary certification scheme for companies importing certain minerals from conflict zones, and aims at supporting good governance and transparency in mining, which is one of the building blocks of the first pillar of the Raw Materials Initiative.

The Commission’s Raw Materials initiative has a strong external dimension so as to ensure fair and sustainable access to raw materials worldwide, by improving supply conditions for EU companies and ensuring a level playing field in the raw materials trade.

Communication on the Raw Materials Initiative "Meeting our critical needs for growth and jobs in Europe" - COM(2008) 699 final

The list was established in the framework of the 2008 EU Raw Materials Initiative in close cooperation with Member States and stakeholders.

The preparation and monitoring of other integrated development operations will go forward. - With the changes under way in the common agricultural policy the Commission will submit in 1988 a wide ranging report on the future of the countryside. - Efforts to increase the involvement of both sides of industry in economic and social policy will be intensified. - An action programme to provide the reintegration of the long term unemployed will be presented; the 1988-92 action programme for the vocational training of young people and their preparation for adult life will be launched; and a programme for 1989-91 on the continuing in- service training of employees will come forward. - There will be new proposals on health and safety at work, con ...[+++]sistently with the new article 118 A of the Single European Act; a Community system for rapid exchange of information on health, safety and hygiene will be proposed. - Action will be proposed to improve the condition of women at work, including the implementation of the 1986-90 programme on improving the social conditions of migrant women; and a second programme on the integration of the handicapped will be put into effect. - The Commission will put forward a whole series of measures to improve the legal environment for small businesses (simplification of accounting requirements, taxation etc) and will actively develop the initiatives started in 1987 (in particular, the expansion of Euro Info Centres, Europartnership between businesses in different regions; and about 120 Business and Innovation Centres will be set up in 1988). - 4 - - In the technology field new programmes will be prepared in the areas of preventive medicine, the environment, the follow-through of R and D results, new transport technologies, new technologies in manufacturing industry (new BRITE programme), new materials, non-nuclear energy, the decommissioning of nuclear facilities, marine science and technology and on agriculture.