Séjourné pushes Porto Marghera into Europe’s rare earths strategy

Veneto, one of Italy’s wealthiest and most industrialised regions, is approaching the EU’s rare earths strategy with caution rather than enthusiasm.

The project, promoted by the European Commission under the leadership of Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné, foresees the creation of two strategic hubs for rare earths and critical raw materials: one in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam port corridor and another at Porto Marghera, the industrial area near Venice currently backed by the Meloni government.

Rare earths are essential for technologies ranging from electric vehicles and semiconductors to defence systems and renewable energy infrastructure. Yet China still dominates the sector, controlling around 70% of global extraction and roughly 90% of refining capacity. 

The Commission’s objective is therefore not simply industrial. It’s geopolitical. 

European officials want to build strategic reserves capable of guaranteeing at least six months of supply for European industry in the event of a major international disruption.

A strategic reserve for Europe

In Veneto, however, local actors are asking whether Porto Marghera risks becoming merely a storage platform for Europe, without generating a broader industrial ecosystem on the ground. 

The memory of the Silicon Box case, a major semiconductor investment ultimately redirected to Novara, still weighs heavily on local political and business circles. When Italian Industry Minister Adolfo Urso travelled to the region to present the initiative, he faced stakeholders far from ready to celebrate another high-profile industrial announcement. 

The announcement also arrived in the middle of Venice’s local election campaign, raising concerns that the project could be reduced to a political slogan rather than a long-term industrial strategy. 

Yet for many in the region, the stakes are considerably higher. 

The challenge of industrial reconversion

The debate centres on whether the project can help redefine Porto Marghera’s economic future after decades of industrial decline.

Once Italy’s largest petrochemical hub, Porto Marghera has spent years searching for a new industrial identity. Eni’s decision to develop the world’s first biorefinery there through a €900 million investment is often cited locally as evidence that industrial reconversion remains possible.

Rome is now trying to position the rare earths hub as part of that transformation. Beyond storage, Urso wants to develop refining activities, circular economy projects and recovery systems for precious metals extracted from electronic waste. 

Business groups and trade unions nonetheless remain cautious. The Venice branch of the CGIL trade union warned that Marghera risks becoming little more than a logistics platform without genuine industrial content. 

Entrepreneur Alberto Baban, president of Fondazione Nord Est, argued that a storage hub alone would have limited economic impact unless it attracts specialised transformation industries and stronger links with universities and research centres.

Giampaolo Faggioli of Confindustria Veneto Est shares that assessment. “The challenge now is bringing Brussels a project that is not only about storage, but also about rare earth processing,” he said. 

At the Vega science park in Marghera, some companies are already positioning themselves within that future ecosystem. Rara Factory, a start-up born out of Ca’ Foscari University, is developing alternatives to rare earth materials using more abundant and environmentally sustainable compounds. 

Its founder, physicist Stefano Bonetti, argues that the presence of a European hub would help stimulate innovation rather than simply warehouse materials. 

For Brussels, Porto Marghera is becoming more than a local industrial project. It is increasingly viewed as a test case for whether the European Union can successfully translate its economic security ambitions into concrete industrial capacity inside Member States.