OSLO (Reuters) – Norway is hoping access to key raw materials for battery production could be a bargaining chip as it seeks to avoid a tariff on battery exports to the European Union, officials said. government ministers told Reuters.

Under a trade deal signed between Britain and the European Union following the first exit from the EU, electric cars produced and exported in either location from 2027 must contain batteries produced in the UK or EU, or face 10% customs duty. .

This has put a damper on work in non-EU Norway, which sees the battery industry as one of the priority areas in its drive for a greener economy.

“My goal is to somehow solve this problem or compensate for it so that Norwegian battery producers have the same market access as European players,” Norway‘s minister of health told Reuters. Industry, Jan Christian Vestre.

Vestre said he was optimistic that a solution could be found and that earlier this year Norway had been invited to take part in a ministerial-level meeting of the European Battery Alliance, an industry group set up by the European Commission and others, which had never happened before. , he said.

Norway also offers access to minerals, metals and rare earths which form an important part of the supply chain and are key to Europe’s ambitions for a sustainable battery industry, Vestre said.

Europe’s second-largest oil and gas exporter after Russia aims to diversify its industrial base, building on its technical heritage from the oil and shipping sectors and its abundant renewable energy resources.

“It was very negative for Norway that this was part of an agreement that we were not part of and if it is possible to do something about it, we will do everything we can,” the Prime Minister told Reuters. Norwegian Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere.

Several battery production plants are already planned in Norway, including projects by Morrow, Freyr, Beyonder and Corvus, as well as the Hydrovolt recycling facility and materials production by Elkem subsidiary Vianode.

(Report by Nora Buli)