Legal coherence in the European Green Deal: the relationship between the Critical Raw Materials Act and the EU biodiversity law

The European Green Deal’s implementation reveals underlying tensions within the European Union’s sustainability agenda. Although necessary for energy and digital transitions, the extraction and processing of critical raw materials cause significant harm to biodiversity. Using Dr Ida Mae de Waal’s definition of legal coherence, this article analyses the Critical Raw Materials Act and biodiversity law, in the light of the objective of protecting and restoring nature under the Biodiversity Strategy. Despite textual consistency and compatible objectives, the analysis reveals incoherence between the legal texts and the policy objective, and thus the inability of the law to protect biodiversity effectively.