A top EU official has accused China of “ruthlessly weaponising” its dominance of the battery sector — using massive state subsidies and economic espionage to gain access to Europe’s single market.

European Commissioner for climate, net zero and clean growth, Wopke Hoekstra, made the stinging attack during a speech to students at the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands.

Hoekstra said on August 31 “Europe has a China problem” and accused the Asian battery tiger nation of intellectual property theft and cyber attacks, saying the EU had “been naïve for far too long”.

He said: “China also works to make us ever more dependent on critical materials and make itself as independent as possible. It dominates roughly 70%-90% of the battery value chain, 90% of rare earth refining and 94% of magnet production required for wind turbines, EVs and defence systems.

“In itself, this would already be uncomfortable with the most benevolent of powers. But it is truly problematic when it is ruthlessly weaponised against us.”

All this also means Europe is being outpaced when it comes to developing, deploying, and setting the standards for tomorrow’s clean technologies.

Hoekstra said the EU has the skills and expertise needed to succeed but has yet to turn these into winning strengths on the world stage in the ongoing geopolitical battle.

“We need to radically step up investments with much more public and private funding from the EU and member states. We need investment and delivery in grids, interconnectors between our member states, renewables, batteries, storage and nuclear.”

The EU must also radically improve its record on recycling, Hoekstra said, noting that batteries from old laptops, phones and even the first generation of electric cars “often end up exported or simply scrapped”.

He said the EU’s recycling rates remain painfully low, but will be supercharged with the introduction soon of new proposals on the circular economy.

“It makes so much sense to move away from a world where we burn 95% of materials to where we recycle and re-use much more, especially strategic raw materials.”

Hoekstra’s comments came just days after a white paper from energy data analytics firm, Wood Mackenzie, warned Europe faces trading-off EV manufacturing sovereignty in return for protecting auto sector jobs with Chinese investment.

A separate study published in August warned the EU was sidelining sustainability principles in the race to secure materials vital to the battery industry.