From “third countries,” the EU, USA, and China are committed to “securing” access to anincreasing number of minerals and raw materials deemed “critical” or “strategic” both through“onshoring”/”insourcing” and through continued import. This pattern will continue “unequal exchange” with the global South and amplify inequities between cores and peripheries in Europe.Let us observe this from one of the EU candidate countries in the Balkans. From the Environmental Justice perspective, I analyse some major operations and projects connected with copper, iron,lithium – all deemed part of the energy transition.