This article unfolds the concept of a genuine European natural resources law. Against the background of the global commodity markets and the commodity dependence of the EU, it argues that the academic debate should focus on safety, sustainability and efficiency in the supply as key principles of European natural resources law. This new field of law, thus, has to be located between environmental and economic law. Although the Lisbon Treaty brought significant changes that help to shape a new academic discipline ‘European natural resources law’ this article pleads for new legal rules or a coherent framework that can be built on recent initiatives and policy approaches of the European commission.