Analysis of critical raw materials industry in North Macedonia: Geological endowment, institutional frictions and pathways into European supply chains

North Macedonia occupies a distinctive position in the European critical raw materials (CRM) landscape: a small, landlocked EU-candidate country with a long mining tradition, established copper, lead, zinc and ferronickel production, advanced exploration projects, and legacy mining and metallurgical waste usable as secondary resources. Yet this base has not matured into a coherent CRM model, being constrained by institutional fragmentation, prolonged permitting, public distrust, limited downstream processing, carbon-intensive energy and incomplete geological-data modernisation. The paper applies a PESTLE framework to explain why the country remains primarily a producer of mineral concentrates rather than an integrated CRM platform. To complement the qualitative analysis, the framework is augmented with a transparent semi-quantitative readiness scoring of the six dimensions. Drawing on peer-reviewed and official sources, it argues that the country’s advantage lies not in expanding mine output alone but in a sequenced strategy: selective expansion of copper, lead-zinc and nickel production under sound environmental and social conditions; adoption of international resource and reserve reporting standards; energy decarbonisation and logistics upgrading; recovery of metals from tailings, slag and coal ash; and institutional reform to cut permitting risk while strengthening environmental credibility. It further argues that three underdeveloped governance instruments are decisive: enforceable mine-closure financial assurance, conditions enabling selective downstream processing, and a predictable, transferable exploration-licensing regime that sustains the project pipeline. With these reforms the country could become a more resilient node in European CRM supply chains; without them, its geological potential remains constrained by governance risk, carbon exposure and social conflict.