The world no longer buys just ore. It buys supply-chain security - and governments have become direct participants in that trade, not merely regulators issuing permits.

That is the shift happening right now. In the United States, after the Vault project was announced in February - a strategic state reserve of critical minerals backed by 12 billion dollars - the administration said it had signed or approved around 160 minerals-related deals worth close to 40 billion dollars since January 2025, according to Fastmarkets data.

Lawyer Rebecca Seidl Ingelsby describes the new rule like this: "The government is not acting only as a lender. Governments are increasingly becoming participants in the deals in the projects. The government is no longer just supporting these deals, the government is now at the table as a party."

Where Macedonia stands

The country has two visible projects in this field. One is the copper at Ilovica-Shtuka. According to the investor, the mine's lifespan would be around 23 years, with economic effects for the state and for Strumica, Bosilovo and Novo Selo. The project has spent a long stretch in various stages of development.

The second is the geological survey for antimony north of Kriva Palanka. Its funding was secured from the US Department of Energy, through the Strategic Dialogue between the two countries.

That is all of it. One project in development and one survey.

The figure that shows the gap

According to estimates by domestic institutions, the country's mining sector generates over 250 million euros in annual production value. That is not a small number in itself.

But it looks different across the region. Serbia earns 3.5 billion euros a year from mining. Bulgaria 2.2 billion. Greece, which has begun opening new capacity, around 1.2 billion. Albania, mainly through chrome, brings in around 500 million euros.

Which means the neighbour to the north takes fourteen times more from the same type of resource. And this at a time when the European Commission is announcing that the next seven-year budget will fund independence from foreign powers, while Ursula von der Leyen says openly that the Union depends on China for over 80 percent of many critical raw materials and 90 percent for some rare earths.

Copper does not come out of the ground with a press statement

Demand for copper is rising because without it there is no electrification, no grid, no batteries. Antimony has entered the strategies for defence systems and semiconductors.

Developing a mining project does not fit into a single term of office. From geological surveys, through studies and documentation, to infrastructure and production, years go by. As Seidl Ingelsby puts it, the constraint is no longer political: "Now we get to the problem of physics, not politics. You cannot expect a magnet factory to be up and running in eleven months."

If that physics applies even where 40 billion dollars sit on the table, then time here is more expensive still. The question is not whether the country has geological potential - that has been established. The question is how much of it turns into investment while the world is still handing out contracts, and who makes those decisions while everyone waits.