Patrick
Decloitre RNZ Pacific French Pacific desk
correspondent
Pro-independence leaders in New
Caledonia’s Congress have boycotted the signing of a
strategic partnership deal on critical raw materials between
the European Union (EU) and the French Pacific territory,
citing concerns over a lack of local consultation.
On
Tuesday, the EU signed the non-binding memorandum of
understanding (MOU) on sustainable raw materials with the
nickel-rich territory.
The EU’s executive
vice-president for prosperity and industrial strategy
Stéphane Séjourné and New Caledonia government’s
President Milakulo Tukumuli, and his Energy and Mining
Minister Alcide Ponga inked the deal.
The MOU
establishes the political framework that will allow the EU
and New Caledonia to cooperate on raw materials value
chains.
“New Caledonia is one of the world’s leading
nickel producers, accounting for 3.1 percent of global
production in 2024,” the EU said in a news release. It is
estimated that New Caledonia also hold 5.4 percent of the
world’s exploitable nickel reserves.
The EU also
recognises New Caledonia’s “broader mineral potential and
its privileged status as an Overseas Country and Territory
(OCT).”
Under the EU classification, New Caledonia
qualifies as an “OCT” because it is part of an EU member
country (France).
The MOU with New Caledonia is the
EU’s 17th strategic partnership in raw materials since
2021.
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The European Commission has previously
established strategic partnerships on raw materials with
Canada and Ukraine (2021), Kazakhstan and Namibia (2022),
Argentina, Chile, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia,
and Greenland (2023), Rwanda, Norway, Uzbekistan, Australia,
and Serbia (2024), South Africa (2025), the United States
(2026).
During his four-day visit, Séjourné said the
deal marked a new chapter in the relationship between the EU
and New Caledonia.
“Europe needs reliable partners to
diversify its critical raw materials supply chains. New
Caledonia has the resources, industrial expertise and
know-how to play a strategic role in this effort,” he
said.
“Our ambition is clear: to make New Caledonia a
preferred supplier for European industry, while making
Europe a partner of choice for investment, financing and new
industrial opportunities in New Caledonia.”
The MOU
outlines five areas in which the EU and New Caledonia are
expected to cooperate.
These include the “economic and
industrial integration of value chains for critical raw
materials and other raw materials” to “develop projects of
common interest, facilitate access to finance to attract
further investments … and mobilise relevant EU, Member
State, financial institution instruments and private
investment”.
The deal also pledges to “cooperate to
ensure that New Caledonia’s minerals sector is a lever for
sustainable and inclusive economic growth with local and
domestic value creation”, within a general framework of
“best practises” and “sustainable exploitation of mineral
resources”.
Séjourné stressed that the MOU was only
the “beginning, a political statement which is expected to
be followed within the next six months by moves to “jointly
develop a roadmap in consultation with all EU Member States,
the European Investment Bank, industry, and
partners.”
“The roadmap will feature concrete actions
to translate the strategic partnership into practice,” he
said.
Séjourné said the MOU would also contribute to
the resilience and diversification of the EU’s raw materials
supply chains in line with the Critical Raw Materials Act
and the RESourceEU Action Plan.
European Investment
Bank vice-president Ambroise Fayolle is expected to visit
New Caledonia early December 2026, he added.
Tukumuli
said the MOU would not replace New Caledonia’s home-grown
nickel strategy.
“It’s not an end in itself, but
rather the beginning of a process. I see this as an
opportunity,” he said at the signing.
Opposition’s
reservations
However, most parties from the
pro-independence side chose not to attend the signing in
protest against what they perceived as a move to push ahead
with the pact without consulting the Congress and therefore
disregarding New Caledonia’s total control over its mining
industry.
They also raised the issue of sovereignty
over the crucial resource.
But the EU diplomat said
that the deal was not just about securing nickel supplies
for Europe.
“It is about creating value, supporting
jobs and building a shared industrial
future.”
Séjourné, who was invited to deliver an
address before New Caledonia’s Congress, criticised the
no-show from the opposition.
“Those empty seats will
not help me convince my European colleagues to bring support
to [New Caledonia’s] projects,” he said.
“This is a
negative signal, from the investors’ perspective.
“We
have signed with several other Overseas Countries and
Territories, including Greenland which has the same OCT
status as New Caledonia.”
Séjourné told French
public network La Première that he was “usually more
used to territories applying pressure to sign more
quickly”.
He said the highly-sensitive nickel
strategy, expected to be defined at a later stage, remained
a matter to be decided locally.
He said the EU was in
favour of a strong and profit-generating local
infrastructure to process nickel and add value before
export.
But New Caledonia’s nickel industry, which has
been undergoing a deep and structural crisis for several
years, needs to undergo drastic reforms, such as a reduction
in its production costs, including energy, to bring the
industry on par with current global producers, such as China
and Indonesia.
New Caledonia’s three current
operators: Prony Resources New Caledonia (PRNC), Société
Le Nickel (SLN) and Koniambo Nickel SAS (KNS) are all facing
difficult times.
In Prony (South of the main island),
an Emirati consortium, New Battery Metals, has recently
withdrawn its bid.
In the North, KNS, once a symbol of
New Caledonia’s rebalancing of wealth, has remained in
mothball mode since 2024, after its main shareholder and
financier British-Swiss Glencore said it was withdrawing
from its 49 percent shareholding, which remains up for
grabs.
International companies, including from China,
have recently expressed willingness to buy into
KNS.
Nickel industry welcomes the pact
Nickel
mining stakeholders welcomed the MOU, stating that the EU’s
interest could increase attention from potential European
investors.
“[This MOU] will make us more attractive
and increase chances of a potential takeover,” PRNC’s acting
president Fatima Lachaize said.
“We have to regain our
place on the world nickel chessboard, faced with the Chinese
industry”, SLN’s general manager Guillaume Kurek
said.
Geostrategic move
Séjourné also noted
that Brussels considered New Caledonia as “one of the only
advanced posts” of Europe in the Pacific region, against a
backdrop of increasing tensions between China and the United
States.
Since Brexit, France now remains the only EU
member state having OCTs in the Pacific; New Caledonia,
French Polynesia and Wallis-and-Futuna.
“New Caledonia
has once again become, probably also in the eyes of my [EU]
colleagues, a geostrategic stake in the Pacific”, he told an
audience at the University of New Caledonia.
“In this
tense international context, with the support of [EU’s] 27
member states, you should feel stronger,” he said.
He
said the deal could illustrate “what New Caledonia can gain”
and “how Europe can build its influence in the
Pacific”.
Séjourné added that the strategic alliance
could also enable the EU, if faced with a decision to
“block” its supply in case of “sudden tension or diplomatic
conflict”, to rely on New Caledonia’s
nickel.
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