Article 19 of the Critical Raw Materials Act requires Member States to draw up national exploration programmes for critical raw materials and for minerals that may contain them. This obligation forms part of a broader EU strategy aimed at improving knowledge of critical raw material resources, strengthening security of supply and identifying recovery potential in extractive waste. The legal issue addressed in this post is how an EU obligation to organise national exploration programmes is translated into domestic administrative law through planning instruments, public funding, data-delivery duties and coordination between authorities with different competences. Spain’s National Mining Exploration Programme 2026-2030 offers an early example of that process.
Administrative implementation of Article 19 CRMA
In Spain, Article 19 of the Critical Raw Materials Act is implemented through the National Mining Exploration Programme 2026-2030, an administrative programme that sets public exploration priorities, and through Order TED/352/2026, a ministerial order that regulates grants for research projects and the delivery of geological and mining information to the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain, now the National Centre IGME-CSIC.
The National Mining Exploration Programme 2026-2030 gives administrative form to Spain’s exploration priorities under Article 19 CRMA, and Order TED/352/2026 specifies the grant-related legal effects of that programming by regulating eligible beneficiaries, funded activities and the delivery of geological and mining information to IGME-CSIC.
Under the Spanish mining regime, Law 22/1973 on Mines establishes the basic legal framework for exploration, investigation and exploitation, while Royal Decree 2857/1978 develops that framework in regulatory detail. Environmental requirements are added by Royal Decree 975/2009, which concerns the management of extractive waste and the protection and restoration of areas affected by mining activities, and by Law 21/2013, which governs environmental assessment. Exploration and investigation permits, as well as exploitation concessions, concern specific resources and territorial areas, grant rights and impose obligations on their holders, and allow the Administration to supervise works and protect environmental, territorial and safety interests.
The National Mining Exploration Programme 2026-2030 adds to the existing mining framework a public mechanism for organising geological knowledge linked to Articles 19 and 27 of the Critical Raw Materials Act, since it integrates previous information into a spatial database, promotes exploration and investigation works, improves metallogenic models and identifies extractive waste facilities with potentially recoverable critical raw materials. By stating that 20 of the 34 critical raw materials defined by the European Union may be found in Spain, it connects Article 19 implementation with a national geological knowledge base and identifies several geological areas with potential for lithium, tungsten, cobalt, strontium and rare earths.
The programme recalls that IGME-CSIC already performs public functions relating to the study of the subsurface, geological information, technical assistance to public administrations and the receipt of geological and mining data under Article 6 of the Law on Mines. It connects those pre-existing functions with Articles 19 and 27 of the Critical Raw Materials Act, with the exploration of critical raw materials and extractive waste, and with data-delivery duties attached to publicly funded projects.
The connection between EU programming and national administrative law can already be seen in the State reservation of the Morille mining area, in the province of Salamanca (Spain), since that measure uses Article 7 of the 1973 Law on Mines, a national mining law power that predates Spain’s accession to the European Communities in 1986, to place the investigation of a specific area under public initiative. That pre-accession technique is specific in its legal form, yet it is not isolated in comparative mining law, since French law subjects mining research and exploitation to public titles through Articles L121-1, L122-1 and L131-1 of the Code minier, German law requires licences or mining proprietorship for freely mineable resources under Sections 6 to 9 of the Bundesberggesetz, Portuguese law places mineral deposits within the State public domain and regulates their private use through Articles 5, 12 and 13 of Law No 54/2015, and Italian law distinguishes mines from quarries and subjects exploration and exploitation to authorisation and concession under Articles 1, 2, 4, 14 and 18 of Royal Decree No 1443/1927. Morille’s current relevance lies in the fact that this national technique can now operate, subject to EU law, in support of the production of geological knowledge on critical raw materials and mining waste before any decision on exploitation is taken.
Funding, information duties and confidentiality
The National Mining Exploration Programme 2026-2030 is presented as an instrument to respond to the obligations laid down in Articles 19 and 27 of the Critical Raw Materials Act, concerning mining exploration and the recovery of critical raw materials from extractive waste. Its main lines include the integration of existing information into a territorial database, the development of exploration and investigation works, the improvement of metallogenic models and the identification of extractive waste facilities containing potentially recoverable critical raw materials.
Order TED/352/2026 links EU-oriented exploration objectives with national grant administration, eligibility criteria, information duties and confidentiality safeguards. Its competitive grants cover geological and mining investigation works on resources in Sections B and C of the Law on Mines, including recoverable mining waste and other mineral resources subject to the general regime for investigation and exploitation, where those resources are included in the list of critical raw materials in Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 or have been expressly identified as an objective by the National Mining Exploration Programme 2026-2030. They also cover preliminary economic assessment studies on the possible recovery of critical raw materials from extractive waste.
The Order limits beneficiaries to legal persons holding authorisations for the recovery of mining waste, investigation permits, exploitation concessions or State reservations, thereby linking public funding to pre-existing mining legal positions. Its eligible content covers information-gathering activities, fieldwork, geological and mining mapping, sampling, laboratory analysis, geophysical techniques, modelling, resource estimation and economic assessment, within projects whose results must be incorporated into the public information system.
The delivery of geological and mining data raises a question of EU administrative law concerning the treatment of information generated through public funding when that information has commercial value, environmental relevance and strategic importance for security of supply. Geological data may reveal the location, concentration and economic viability of resources, which explains the interest of project beneficiaries in confidentiality. The same data may concern extractive waste, environmental risks or restoration needs, giving them public and environmental relevance. The effectiveness of Article 19 CRMA will therefore depend on whether the national administrative framework can transform geological and mining data into usable public knowledge, preserve legitimate confidentiality interests and keep environmental information available for later public decision-making.
The requirement to deliver to IGME-CSIC the geological and mining information obtained in subsidised projects, together with safeguards relating to commercial and industrial confidentiality, calls for an administrative assessment of how that information should be used, stored and disclosed. Public authorities will need to determine which information should be incorporated into public databases, which information may be disclosed in aggregated or simplified form, and which information may be kept confidential for a limited period in order to protect legitimate commercial interests. That assessment should take account of commercial confidentiality, the public interest in information generated with public funding, the environmental relevance of data on waste and risks, and the EU interest in improving knowledge of critical raw materials for security of supply. It should also keep security of supply distinct from national-security classifications for geological data.
The administrative treatment of geological and mining data generated with public funding is also connected with the EU regime on access to environmental information, in particular Directive 2003/4/EC and the Aarhus Convention, implemented in Spain by Law 27/2006. In Right to Know, C-84/22, and Bayer CropScience, C-442/14, the Court of Justice requires exceptions to access to environmental information to be specifically justified and weighed against the public interest in disclosure, especially where commercial or industrial confidentiality is invoked in relation to information of environmental relevance.
National administrative autonomy and extractive waste
Under the principle of national administrative autonomy, Member States may choose the domestic authorities and instruments through which they implement Article 19 of the Critical Raw Materials Act, subject to the need to ensure the effectiveness of EU law. In a Member State with a decentralised territorial structure, that effectiveness will depend in practice on whether central and regional authorities can rely on a coherent information base when they exercise their respective competences on mining permits, environmental assessment and spatial planning.
By bringing within the scope of exploration critical raw materials that may be found in tailings ponds, spoil heaps or other deposits resulting from previous mining activities, the National Mining Exploration Programme 2026-2030 and Order TED/352/2026 make extractive waste relevant as a possible source of supply whose assessment necessarily engages the environmental rules governing management, control, restoration and safe closure. The assessment of those facilities therefore requires both types of information: geological and economic data are needed to determine whether critical raw materials may be recovered, and environmental data are needed to determine whether the mobilisation or reprocessing of the waste would be acceptable under the rules on management, control, restoration and safe closure.
The National Mining Exploration Programme 2026-2030 recalls that the National Inventory of Tailings Ponds and Spoil Heaps, prepared by IGME between 1983 and 1989, collected basic information on 21,673 structures and complete records for 7,162 facilities without sampling or analytical characterisation, which makes the updated technical information required by Article 27 of the Critical Raw Materials Act necessary for assessing recovery potential, environmental risk and the conditions under which waste mobilisation may be acceptable.
In Spain, cooperation with the autonomous communities, territorial entities with political and administrative autonomy within the Spanish State, already had concrete technical precedents before the National Mining Exploration Programme 2026-2030. These precedents include the POMINAL study on the mining potential of Andalusia for critical minerals, carried out between 2017 and 2022, and the BALESPA inventory of tailings ponds and spoil heaps in Asturias, carried out in 2022.
That collaborative route is maintained through coordination mechanisms with the autonomous communities, especially where priority geological areas or autonomous-community inventories may provide relevant information on abandoned extractive waste facilities, in a legal context where the State reservation mechanism contained in Article 7 of the 1973 Law on Mines predates the development of the autonomous communities after the 1978 Constitution and where the information generated through IGME-CSIC may later be relevant to regional decisions on mining permits, environmental assessment, spatial planning and project control, since those decisions concern specific territorial areas and depend on technical data about geological potential, extractive waste, environmental risks and restoration needs.
Conclusions
The main legal difficulty in Spain’s implementation of Article 19 of the Critical Raw Materials Act lies in defining the legal status of geological and mining data generated through public funding, since those data may combine commercial value, environmental relevance and public interest in the identification of critical raw materials. Spain does not start from an absence of public geological information, as IGME-CSIC already collected data through statutory functions, mining-law reports, databases, maps, inventories and research projects. In my view, the weakness of the Spanish approach is that the programme now seeks to organise that information around Articles 19 and 27 CRMA, public funding and data delivery to IGME-CSIC, but leaves the legal criteria for administrative use, aggregation, disclosure and duration of confidentiality only partially developed.
The National Mining Exploration Programme 2026-2030 is right to include extractive waste in the exploration of critical raw materials because, from the perspective of good administration, decisions concerning recovery potential, environmental risk and later authorisations require an adequate and reliable factual basis that the historical inventory of tailings ponds and spoil heaps, together with later inventories and studies, can only provide in limited terms.
The Spanish General State Administration, through the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge and with technical support from IGME-CSIC, should promote common criteria among autonomous communities on geological and mining data, especially concerning waste, environmental risks, recovery potential and territorial compatibility. Horizontal coordination would reduce the risk of fragmented information across territories.
Rodrigo Muñoz-Mohedano Rincón is a PhD candidate in Law at Universidad CEU San Pablo, Madrid (Spain). His research focuses on European Union law, international arbitration and State liability for regulatory change. His recent work includes publications on the legal control of mining in Galicia, judicial independence in preliminary reference and constitutional review procedures after the reform introduced by Organic Law 1/2025, and administrative and judicial review of the Retortillo uranium concentrate plant. He has also published blog contributions on State liability and air quality regulation, and has presented papers on EU law, administrative law, renewable energy support schemes, mining-affected soils and EU taxonomy litigation. ORCID: 0009-0003-3618-8084.