In Andalusia, 73 geological surveys are currently under way for 27 minerals that European industry needs. In Macedonia, no new mine for metallic raw materials has opened in more than four decades.

The Spanish region accounts for around 90 percent of the value of metal mining in Spain. Metal ore production exceeds 1.2 billion euros a year, and the sector provides more than 8,000 jobs. That is not a historical inheritance - it is a current policy that is actively expanding.

Ilovica waits, and the numbers sit there in writing

Macedonia has confirmed copper potential at Ilovica. The Ilovica-Shtuka project was announced with an initial investment of around 350 million euros, with a plan for around 1,000 direct jobs in the construction phase and around 500 in the operational phase. The indirect effect, according to the investor's projections, could reach around 2,700 jobs.

Those are the investor's projections, not realised figures - the distinction matters and must not be erased. But even as projections, they have existed on paper for decades, while the number of people employed in Macedonian mining keeps shrinking.

Copper, magnesium, bismuth and arsenic are essential for electrification, for the electronics, automotive, steel and pharmaceutical industries. Lithium, cobalt and nickel are key for electric vehicle batteries. Rare earth elements go into wind turbines. That is the list Europe is currently running after, because import dependence has become a strategic question, not merely a commercial one.

The difference is not in the geology

The 73 permits in Andalusia cover 80 municipalities spread across the eight provinces. Huelva leads with 38, Seville has twelve, Cordoba eight. The region already has two projects classified as strategic projects of the European Union, backed with 7.6 and 3.44 million euros.

That is a mechanism that works: survey, classification, European support, production. Every step has an institution carrying it. Macedonia has confirmed ore and one announcement.

The question is not whether the country has copper - it does, and that has been established. The question is why an established resource stays for decades as nothing more than a dot on a geological map, while the discussion about it starts over every time and ends with the same sentence about untapped potential.