Signatories reject the proposed legislation because of its disregard for environmental and human rights, endorsement of social engineering, and failure to address Europe’s obsolete mining regulations and the urgency of reducing demand. If approved, the Act will fast-track permitting procedures, water down environmental laws and set the floor to inject billions of euros into socially and environmentally irresponsible mining corporations.

“The European Parliament and the Commission had the opportunity to meet the needs of local communities with this law and they failed miserably,” says Bojana Novakovic from the movement against lithium mining “Marš sa Drine” in Serbia. “We are tired of begging, pleading and negotiating. The EU has failed us, so we are sending a clear message – withdraw the law or you will see us on the streets and in court.”

The announcement earlier this week of a political agreement between the European Parliament and the European Council to push forward with the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) has brought about an immediate reaction among civil society organizations, local communities as well as experts and academics across the world. Recalling the ongoing political crisis in Portugal and its connection with two lithium mining projects, the letter warns that the regulation will extend the influence of the mining lobby and spread even more corruption due to less regulation. 

It also exposes how EU policymakers have failed to see beyond the Brussels ‘bubble’, disregarding the potentially catastrophic impacts of a new mining boom. Signatories condemn the proposed legislation’s endorsement of ‘social acceptance’ activities aimed at changing public opposition to mining projects into passive tolerance or active support. The letter also exposes 25 projects funded by the EU at a total cost of €181M with deliverables that seek out to build public acceptance for extractive projects.

“It’s simple for us,” says a representant from MiningWatch Romania: “Approval of the CRMA will lead to legal action as the proposed legislation would breach rights of public participation in environmental decision making, enshrined by the Aarhus Convention which the European Union ratified.”

On the situation in Portugal, the founder of MiningWatch Portugal, Nik Völker, adds: “Unfortunately, non-compliance seems to be the norm in Portugal, even in well-documented cases known to the authorities. The Borba tragedy, the tailings from the Panasqueira mine and, since last week, the acid waters in Aljustrel, also testify to a precarious state of the competent authorities. The Brussels ‘bubble’ that envisages permitting in two years seems a long way from our reality of projects that are already half a decade in the process, for example for Lithium in the Barroso area.”

Letter to the Commission: https://miningwatch.pt/public/OpenLetter-CSO-CRMA_2023-11-16.pdf

FEAR OF A RETURN OF THE MINES: Brussels is preparing a new law — the Critical Raw Materials Act — to facilitate mining in Europe. But activists are now mobilizing against it, warning the law would steamroll over local environmental opposition and even allow the construction of mines in protected natural reserves.

There’s always a news hook: “In Portugal the prime minister resigned over a probe into corruption over lithium mining,” Bojana Novakovic, a Serbian-Australian actor-turned-activist who is campaigning against mining projects, told Playbook. “Communities on the ground … have been expressing grave concerns about lack of transparency relating to this project for years.”

Corruption warning: “Corruption is endemic to mining, and the Critical Raw Materials [Act] is a law which would simply make more of that corruption legal,” Novakovic said. “It would make the lives of local communities, the lands we care for and the nature we live with even more difficult than it is now.”

Background: The law — currently in negotiations — establishes a benchmark that at least 10 percent of the “strategic raw materials” consumed by the EU should be extracted in domestic mines. As part of the measures to speed up mining projects, the regulation would reduce opportunities for local opposition groups to delay permits for new mines.

‘Overriding public interest’: The act currently sets a deadline for authorities of a maximum of 24 months to grant extraction permits. It also limits the public consultation period for environmental impact assessments to 90 days, pointing to an “overriding public interest” that such projects move forward.

Activists gear up: “The Critical Raw Materials Act is set to take a wrecking ball to human rights and environmental protection,” Laura Sullivan from the WeMove Europe activist network told Playbook. Together with Novakovic and other local organizations, WeMove is launching an online petition to scrap the act.

Re-shoring pollution: “Supplying Europe used to be a Global South problem and was arguably easier to hide,” Sullivan argued. “But the Critical Raw Materials Act will bring the mining scale up to European countries like Portugal, Spain, Ireland … it’s about to become a major problem for people in Europe.”

The Regulatory Institute for Renewable Energy and the Environment (RERI) has said that the Ministry of Mining and Energy is unjustifiably extending the deadline for Rio Tinto to obtain a license for lithium mining in Serbia.

Rio Tinto has been trying for more than two years to obtain approval to open a lithium exploration mine in Serbia and it needs a document that allows it to start mining lithium in Serbia, despite the fact that it did not attach the necessary documentation to the relevant application, RERI added.

The Serbian government did say that the Rio Tinto lithium project in Serbia had been stopped and that all line authorities would immediately suspend all relevant procedures.

Nevertheless, the Ministry of Mining and Energy has not stopped the procedure for issuing the permit for lithium exploitation, but over the course of two years, without giving clear reasons, extended the deadline for the company to complete the documentation 11 times.

“Rio Tinto does not have the document on determining the scope and content of the environmental impact assessment study, because it was canceled in January of last year,” says Hristina Vojvodić, RERI’s legal advisor.

Although the company filed a lawsuit with the Administrative Court against the annulment decision, this does not constitute a justified reason for extending the deadline for supplementing the relevant documentation, the statement added.

(Nova Ekonomija) Full article at Serbian Monitor

Environmental organizations have sent a clear message to Rio Tinto’s shareholders: the company’s insistence to carry on with the formally canceled project will only strengthen the opposition to it and the possibility of social unrest, carrying with it financial and political risk, the Marš sa Drine initiative and Earth Thrive said.

The protest was joined by the WeMove Europe and London Mining Network, which organized the arrival of activists from Arizona, Madagascar, and Serbia. A titanium mine is planned in Arizona, while in the island country Rio Tinto is operating a copper mine.

Of note, in 2023 Rio Tinto marks 150 years of operation.

Rio Tinto is not welcome in Serbia, activists said during the protest, which is part of a campaign called Rio Tinto: Against People, Climate and Nature and the International Day of Action against Rio Tinto.

The environmentalists also took 500,000 signatures to the door of Rio Tinto’s headquarters in London.

The representative of Serbian activists in London, Nebojša Petrović, a resident of the affected village of Gornje Nedeljice in the country’s west and a member of the Ne damo Jadar association, took the opportunity to ask the company’s officials why it hasn’t left Serbia after the spatial plan for a lithium mine and processing plant was annulled, and why it keeps buying land from private owners.

“The Ne damo Jadar association will fight Rio Tinto together with all other environmental organizations until it drives you out of Serbia,” Petković said.

He later explained he didn’t get any straightforward answer and that he also asked why the company insists on the project after the Serbian experts said that its implementation is the path to an ecological disaster.

They just said it was not true, Petković added.

Full article on Balkan Green Energy News

The JADAR valley is a unique ecosystem of nature and humanity. Surrounded by mountains and two rivers, this valley is home to generations of famers, who produce over 70 million Euros of agricultural yield every year. The valley is self-sustaining and feeds not just its inhabitants, but surrounding areas as well. Groundwaters run so deep that even during drought, crops yield food. There are schools, churches and shops, a thriving cultural landscape and thousands who want to remain and maintain what has been handed to them for over generations from their predecessors.

In May 2021 the European Commission confirmed that the EIA directive and SEA directive will be applicable for assessing the environmental impact of the Jadar proposal and  that the EIA must cover the entire proposal so as to assess its cumulative impact. In early July 2021 Serbia’s ministry for the environment released RT’s scoping presentation report.^[1] It was incomplete and contained only the mine complex without the processing plant and tailings landfill. Assessment proper was supposed to commence early december 2021 and then construction in 2022, but enormous public opposition, including a petition with over 290 thousand signatures (5% of Serbia’s population), a book released by the Academy of Sciences^[2] and two weeks of civil disobedience with over 100 thousand on the streets, led the government to annulling the Special Purpose Spatial Plan – Jadar, the legal premise for the project^[3]. They did this in view of quieting the subject before elections, after which President Vucic announced that the cancellation had been a mistake. The company then stated they hope to “be able to discuss all of the options with the government of Serbia now the elections are out of the way.” Mars sa Drine responded stating that “Serbia’s effort to transition into a politically stable country will be jeopardized if companies like Rio Tinto believe they can undermine democracy and try to re-introduce nepotism. The government made its choice: it listened to the people.”^[4] This new but not unexpected reality means that our movement continues until we have achieved complete legal protection of Jadar and sent Rio Tinto and any other potential investors packing.

Rio Tinto’s lithium and borate proposal in the Jadar Valley covers 22 villages. The area is a rich agricultural area consisting of farming, bee-keeping, tourism etc. Agricultural yields alone are estimated at over 70 million Euros per year.^[6] The spatial plan for the mine embraces an area of 2,031 hectares for a special purpose complex, accompanying corridors and traffic infrastructure systems.​ Nearly 200 hectares of forests would need to be cut: 80 hectares for roads/ railways and 164 hectares for 35% of projected tailings. Rio Tinto needs to purchase 600 hectares of land from 335 landowners to continue development. The mine is envisaged on the bank of the Korenita river, a tributary to the Jadar river, with underground mining to be performed underneath both riverbeds. Close by, a flotation facility would use 1000 tons of concentrated sulfuric acid per day (to be diluted by 5000-6000 tons of water). The proposal is designed to operate 24/7 over a mine life of 60 years.

Tailings are to be located a few hundred meters from the mine, close to the rivers and will amount to 1.3 million tons per year (90 million tons during mine life). The Jadar and Korenita are prone to flooding every year, with the most recent large floods being in 2020. There is a high risk that tailings will end up in these two rivers, then flow into the Drina, Sava, and the Danube. The Drina flows into Bosnia & Herzegovina and the Danube flows into Romania. It is expected that changes in temperature will imply a higher risk of floods in extremely rainy periods, and of droughts in extremely warm periods of the year^[7].
The proposal is low-cost and expandable,^[8] which taken together is the worst combination for a mine as most accidents occur with badly planned (low cost) mine extensions that keep adding to the tailings and waste deposits planned for the initial or first phase of the mine.

Rio Tinto’s jadarite (lithium and borate) mine proposal in Serbia^[5]

The proposal is situated in an area of exceptional archaeological importance and Rio Tinto is currently considering an alternative to the current tailings site which would be situated in close proximity to Paulje, an archaeological site roughly 3500 years old. The Spatial Plan mentions some of them but omits several extremely important archeological and cultural sites and natural monuments (sections 5.1.1 and 6.2).^[9]

So far lithium mining has not existed anywhere in the world on fertile soil. A proposal in the Nevada desert was recently stopped due to the detrimental effect of the technology involved on sage, grouse and other wildlife and is now in question due to the ancestral bones of native Americans. Yet in Serbia the government seems determined to permit a vast and murky proposal that will destroy inhabited and thriving villages built on fertile land that has been farmed for generations, with exceptional heritage values and protected species of animals.

There exists considerable local, national and transnational^[10] opposition to the mine proposal. Ne Damo Jadar (NDJ) is an association of 335 property owners, based in the Jadar Valley, Western Serbia opposed to Rio Tinto’s proposed lithium and borate mine and processing center based on social, environmental, economic and heritage grounds. Marš sa Drine (MSD) is a network comprising 20 organizations and independent experts throughout Serbia and its diaspora.A petition launched by MSD has gathered over 290,000 signatures (5% of the Serbian population) against the proposed mine. 

Irregularities are already identified from Rio Tinto’s project presentation and scoping report:^[11] They state that it “refers to only one part of the entire project, more precisely to the underground exploitation project.” Provisions of the EIA Directive cannot be avoided by splitting projects into smaller projects, and failing to take into account their cumulative environmental impact.^[12]/[13] The PPR does not include ore processing and final products, as well chemical and other ore treatment, or planned solutions for treatment and disposal of waste. Hence there is no mention or description of the technology used for the processing of lithium ore, how the mining waste will be treated, what its character is, its composition, the location of the landfill, or any other information related to it. There is no description on the significance and quality of natural resources in existence or on protected natural areas.^[14]

An open letter from the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts to prime minister Ana Brnabićoutlines experts’ concerns of environmental and scientific irregularities in the project.  Their peer approved publication “Project Jadar – what is known” contains numerous studies, analysis and opinions on the catastrophic potentialities of this project. In September 2021 Banktrack also listed the Jadar proposal on their dodgy deal database, where letters to banks and investors of Rio Tinto and to their shareholders are made public.

It is no exaggeration to state that Serbia’s government has no control over the implementation of its own environmental protection laws, let alone of its obligations towards the environmental acquis. Premier Ana Brnabic endorsed Rio Tinto’s proposal of ‘strategic importance’ in 2021 without even the existence of an EIA or feasibility report.

The project has been fraught with irregularities at the highest political level.  In 2017 the Serbian government and Rio Tinto signed a memorandum of understanding^[15] (MOU) which was withheld from the public for many years (despite Rio Tinto’s claims for CSR, transparency etc.)^[16] In spring 2021 the government approved the proposal’s local spatial plan despite being incomplete. It was adopted without a feasibility study at its base (which is a legal requirement) and without a long-term exploitation program, required for projects longer than 10 years. This local spatial plan was annulled after local opposition gathered 5 thousands signatures in 7 days. However the annulment did not legally alter the company’s permits as they were based on the federal Special Purpose Spatial Plan, which was only canceled on January 20 2022 after public pressure, and also came with controversies of its own.

The EU Commission has been a strong supporter of the project’s development; going so far as to endorse it despite its early stages. In October 2021, Mars sa Drine exposed correspondence between EU Commission department DG Grow and Rio Tinto which showed the mine was planned to receive approval in May 2022, after Serbia’s general elections, and that it had the support of Serbian President, Aleksandrar Vucic^[17]. This generated significant backlash against Vucic because he had actually announced that the decision over Jadar would belong to the people via a national referendum. To amplify this betrayal, Mars sa Drine and experts met with EU ambassador, Emanuele Giaufret, where it was made clear that further political pressure on this project would have adverse effects for the relationship between the Serbian people and the European Union.

Reacting to huge on- and off-line public outcry at a time of imminent general elections, Serbia’s prime minister announced on 20 January 2022 that Rio Tinto’s entire mine proposal had been canceled with the annulment of the Special Purpose Spatial Plan, which is the legal basis for all of the project’s permits.^[18]

A correct legal procedure following the cancellation of the SPSP would have been for all relevant authorities to repeal without delay all individual acts they adopted with connection to this spatial plan. That did not happen, and requests for access to this information yielded no results. However, it was widely reported  that Rio Tinto was continuing to purchase properties within the project footprint, as well as trespassing on local activists’ land.

Then, a mere week ahead of 3 April, a whistleblower shared evidence confirming that Rio Tinto was currently working with Thyssen Schachtbau on delivering a VSM boring machine to the Jadar Valley in April.  A press conference released material of the leak which made front page news and was covered by several news portals. The government reacted instantly stating that “the Administrative Commission annulled the decision of the Ministry of Environmental Protection on the scope and content of the EIA.”^[19] The announcement was not as significant as its timing because this should have happened months before, and the leak indicates that the project will either proceed or go toward arbitration.

To that end, civil society groups initiated a “citizens initiative” which is a process that grants its authors the right to present a bill to parliament if they manage to gather 30,000 notarized signatures. In this instance, 36,000 signatures were gathered in 20 days. The request is for a legal ban on the extraction of lithium and borates in Serbia. It will be presented as soon as parliament reconvenes after the summer recess.

Organisation Earth Thrive submitted a complaint against the Jadar Project to the Bureau of the Bern Convention, of which Serbia is a full signatory, in April of 2022.[20] The complaint outlines serious harm that could be caused to the numerous and highly protected species and wild habitats in the region, and carries within it potential evidence of breaches of international law and ethical corporate social responsibility. “’In consideration of the ecological value of the area at the center of the complaint,” The Bureau “expressed its concern on the considerable negative effects on the species and habitats that the construction of a lithium mine would have.” The Bureau has put the Complaint on ‘stand-by’ ready to be opened should the project be officially resurrected, which, as we have come to understand is exactly what the government and the company are trying to orchestrate.

In May 2022, through a Freedom of information request response, it was revealed that the exploitation license for the Jadar mining complex, which was supposed to have been cancelled with the Spatial Plan, was still in process[21]. This was further confirmed by the Ministry for Mining in October[22]. An open letter to Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, from MSD and local landowners demanding clarification for these legal irregularities, still remains unanswered.

At around the same time Rio Tinto was having behind closed doors meetings with the European Commission, sharing new strategies for their officially cancelled project. EU documents revealed by MSD show that Rio Tinto was forming relationships with locals and academic institutions, and strategising to get involved in agriculture[23].

In October, local businesses started receiving email requests for quotes regarding work on a waste water treatment for Project Jadar from US company Bechtel[24]. In response to public complaints about this and job offers for HR, senior advisor for brand and digital, a communication analyst and a travel administrator, as well as further property purchases, Rio Tinto put out a statement on their website[25] claiming they have “outstanding legal commitments including the completion of an internal feasibility study. They claim to “respect the government’s decision to revoke all permits and licenses for the project” despite evidence of the licensing procedure still being in process.

Representatives of nine organizations from Serbia, Portugal, Germany, Chile and Spain signed the Jadar Declaration on international solidarity against lithium exploitation and for environmental protection. The dominant narrative around lithium normalizes “sacrifice zones,” and the Jadar declaration is a basis for mutual support, cooperation, exchanging information and help against the expansion of lithium ore mining and other kinds of extractivism brought by an unjust energy transition. The greenwashing of the energy transition saw further exposure in media coverage about the potential sacrifice of The Balkans for Europe’s Energy transition with the latter’s attempt to move away from reliance on China. 

Given the huge public awareness campaign in Serbia, other regions in danger from lithium exploration have themselves been active. In December the people of Valjevo won a victory against mining company Euro Lithium, after the Ministry for mining refused to renew the company’s exploration license, while local citizens of the villages of the Levac area have been camping for over four months in order to protect an acre of land from being test drilled.

As prime minister Ana Brnabic proclaims that this is a historic opportunity for Serbia, negating her previous statements that she has put a “full stop” to the Jadar Project, we continue to prepare for further actions in the goal of protecting and preserving the Jadar Valley.

“There are things that money can’t buy. Our land, our roots, our home, our heritage are not for sale, nor are our souls. We inherited everything we have, and it is our obligation to pass it on to our grandchildren. You do not have our permission to build a mine in the Jadar Valley! We will defend this country at the cost of our lives.” Zlatko Kokanović, vice president of the association “Ne Damo Jadar”.

We just want our normal little lives back. We want to do our agriculture and our jobs. We do not want to think about the mine, nor about pollution. Life is in full force here. Our children, these fields, houses, – this took generations to build. One company cannot erase all this or erase the traditions of our people. Marijana Trbović Petković, “Ne Damo Jadar” Gornje Nedeljice.

Given that the insatiable drive for profit is what got us into the climate crisis in the first place, is its solution a cheap mine in the hands of a world polluter, where we replace one form of extraction with another? If we let Rio Tinto come to Europe, we are incentivising environmental degradation at the expense of looking at real solutions. We are allowing corporations who are responsible for the climate crisis to act as if they are its solution. Bojana Novakovic – co-ordinator Mars Sa Drine campaign 

For further information please email us at info@marssadrine.org

Download the information sheet here. Public use of this document is permitted with the credit: “Author: Marš Sa Drine, Serbia. www.marssadrine.org”

[1] https://www.dropbox.com/sh/shz8l6p3aejm7qr/AAAY7p4K8LEVr0JY3h5lBpEYa?dl=0

[2] https://www.euronews.rs/srbija/drustvo/39320/zbornik-radova-sanu-eskploatacija-litijuma-ostavila-bi-velike-posledice-na-zivotnu-sredinu/vest

[3] https://www.dropbox.com/sh/awlij2fn7n0arx3/AACJAYuKmCNEZESenxFd4n4ka?dl=0

[4] https://www.dropbox.com/s/fcac3gn7jctwkpj/XR_MSD%20Joint%20Press%20Release.pdf?dl=0

[5] https://www.riotinto.com/en/operations/projects/jadar

[6] https://marssadrine.org/en/ratko-ristic-rad-sanu-serbian-academy-of-sciences/

[7] (Observed climate changes and projections of the future climate based on different scenarios of future emissions, Vladimir Đurđević, Ana Vuković and Mirjam Vujadinović Mandić, United Nations Development Program, 2018).

[8] https://www.riotinto.com/-/media/Content/Documents/Operations/Jadar/RT-Jadar-Fact-sheet-EN.pdf

[9] The Law on Mining and Geological Research explicitly prohibits a company, ie other legal entity and entrepreneur, which has due but unsettled obligations on the basis of, among other things, unfulfilled obligations related to the rehabilitation and protection of the environment and cultural goods and goods that enjoy prior protection, to be the bearer of exploration and exploitation. Article 31, paragraph 3 of the Law on Nature Protection prohibits all actions and activities that endanger the features and values ​​of the natural monument, which will arise from the implementation of the “Jadar” project.

[10] Environmental organizations in Romania are extremely worried about potential transboundary impact of an accidental spill into the Drina river. They have requested their environment minister trigger the ESPOO Convention transboundary impact assessment.

[11] https://www.dropbox.com/sh/a1hkx3fie33oq1f/AAA_4Cmj6aGNzUc6uVHhtjnaa?dl=0

[12] (Republic of Serbia, Ministry of Environmental Protection, decision number 353-02-00984 / 2020-03, dated 5.6.2020)

[13] https://curia.europa.eu/juris/showPdf.jsf;jsessionid=C5DC2B5FA562F10AEE65605779F05FF9?text=&docid=44721&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=549973

[14] There is no mention of:

1. “Cer” (classification code RS024IBA), total area of ​​about 19,000 hectares.
2. “Cer” – part of the IBA program and verified within BLI (BirdLife International), which has 130 registered bird species.

National protected species of birds and fish, including the MLADICA (saplings), which sees its highest concentration in the Drina and was declared a protected species – Declared by the Rulebook on the Proclamation of Protected and Strictly Protected Wild Species of Plants, Animals and Fungi (“Official Gazette of RS”, No. 5/10 and 47/11) and on the IUCN global list of endangered species it is classified as endangered (EN B2ab (ii, iii)).

[15] https://www.riotinto.com/news/releases/Jadar-MoU-Serbia-signed

[16] https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0j0hlb2d88z3985/AABUHcdg_J3-AfUQu1lPdYVBa?dl=0

[17] https://www.dropbox.com/sh/22mx5n4j5wrrwpb/AAA0tJbrpg8Kk8aEtrlSAI9Ba?dl=0

[18] https://www.dropbox.com/sh/awlij2fn7n0arx3/AACJAYuKmCNEZESenxFd4n4ka?dl=0

[19] https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6rdcq98liqf8loh/AACT-bubW6ScQ3vX-HtDgkXha?dl=0

[20] https://www.dropbox.com/s/fcac3gn7jctwkpj/XR_MSD%20Joint%20Press%20Release.pdf?dl=0

[21] https://www.dropbox.com/s/qdgrkptsntv7t93/CommonwealthBankAus_13072022.pdf?dl=0

[20] https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6yaxjyujkr1l7f6/AADVuYSwE_H8_gtM1BEy04nna?dl=0

[21] https://www.dropbox.com/s/ylcf6cnt0s5fdq2/3.%20060122%20ministarstvo%20rudarstva%20i%20energetike%20odgovor.pdf?dl=0

[22] https://www.dropbox.com/s/7xri0pawi7hhq75/6.%20101022%20sa%20potpisom.pdf?dl=0

[23] https://www.dropbox.com/sh/b4mfmbg6esnhu18/AAClDKGTgHG6CcuZ0wqXvCqOa?dl=0

[24] https://www.danas.rs/vesti/drustvo/seos-rio-tinto-i-behtel-rade-na-projektu-za-preciscivanje-otpadnih-voda-za-projekat-jadar/

[25] https://riotintoserbia.com/mediji/saopstenja-za-javnost/2022/2022-08-10-Interna-studija-izvodljivosti-mora-biti-zavrsena

Internal Feasibility study must be completed AUGUST 10TH, 2022 This statement is a response to the SEOS claim that Rio Tinto and Bechtel are progressing the development of the Jadar Project. Rio Tinto reiterates that it respects the Government decision earlier this year to revoke all permits and licenses for the project. We are continuing to conduct our business activities in accordance with Serbian laws. All of our activities are a continuation of previous commitments. This includes completing the internal Feasibility Study, which requires collecting and assessing design data from relevant vendors in order to meet applicable technical, environmental and sustainability standards. The Feasibility Study is being completed in partnership with Bechtel, who have provided Project Management Contractor (PMC) support to the project since 2018.

The ‘Kreni – Promeni’ (‘Go-Change’)” campaign staged a performance on Friday outside the US Embassy building in Belgrade in protest against US Ambassador Christopher Hill’s support for the Rio Tinto company and lithium mining. Following the performance, the Ambassador stepped outside to talk to the performers.

Campaign director Savo Manojlovic said they came to express their dissatisfaction with the Ambassador’s statement that Rio Tinto is not just an ordinary mining project and that the US is trying to support this company in Serbia.

He described Hill’s statement as completely impermissible and said they deeply believe it is contrary to the values of the Ambassador’s country.

He noted that when talking about democracy, Thomas Jefferson said that “When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny,” and that a people’s initiative to ban lithium mining was submitted to the Serbian Parliament last year which, contrary to the Constitution, has still not been put on the agenda.

Manojlovic reminded the US Ambassador that mass protests have been held in Serbia against lithium mining and told him that, if the US has interest in Serbia, it will not support the Rio Tinto project in any way.

Hill told Manojlovic that he gave the statement on lithium to the Glas Sumadije (Voice of Sumadija) portal and that he very much respects local media and seriously replies to all their questions the same way he does when speaking for big media outlets.

The Ambassador said his second principle is to be frank, so he told Manojlovic that he will be frank with him too.

I want to be clear – how Serbs decide on their economy, development, on what raw materials they will use, that is Serbia’s business, said Hill, adding that nothing any foreign diplomat says will change that.

He said Glas Sumadije asked him for his opinion on lithium and that he said he believes Serbia needs more green energy. Lithium has to do with electric vehicles, that will be Serbia’s decision, but Serbia needs more electric cars, and that is part of modern economy, said Hill.

The Ambassador emphasized that the decision on this matter is for Serbia to make, but that he has the right to voice his opinion.

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US Ambassador to Serbia Christopher Hill said that Rio Tinto is not just an ordinary mining project because it will be tied to the modern economy and added that he is trying to cooperate on this issue with the Serbian Government.

I think it is important for people to understand that this is not just a mining project, a project in which something is extracted from the ground and exported. This project will be tied to the modern economy. The lithium extracted from the ground will be used for the production of batteries that will be installed in electric vehicles, Hill said in an interview with the Glas Sumadije portal.

He said he is trying to cooperate with the Serbian Government on this issue and that the US is trying to support Rio Tiinto that is partly, although not entirely, an American company.

I think it is very important that all those involved in this project respect the environment, that is the first rule, said Hill.

The Ambassador said effort should be made to point out to the citizens the need for this project to connect them with the green agenda, the green economy, because that is where they belong.

He assessed that this is a very complex issue that people living in this area should focus on, adding he believes everything will turn out fine if everyone works together and keeps in mind the needs of the future.

A BIRN investigation shows that Rio Tinto has spent more than a million euros on land in Serbia at the proposed site of a lithium mine that was eventually cancelled a year ago, while a redacted readout of a meeting with the EU makes clear the company’s fear of a national referendum on the issue.

Since mid-2022, the year Serbia’s government revoked licences for a $2.4 billion lithium mine, Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto has spent at least 1.2 million euros on land in the area that it hoped to exploit, BIRN can report, and is now offering financial aid to local firms in an apparent bid to win favour.

Faced with growing public opposition, the government called off the project in January last year, but critics speculated that the halt was only temporary, to avoid a voter backlash in elections that April.

But while Prime Minister Ana Brnabic stressed again in December that she sees no way back for the ‘Jadar’ project, the company itself says it has not “given up” and President Aleksandar Vucic is again mooting the possibility of a referendum. Opponents of the project face being beaten, he said on January 5.

“You never know – maybe they’ll have that referendum, maybe next or the year after that, you never know, just to fulfill a promise, so they can see how they will fare,” said Vucic, who as leader of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party is the most powerful political figure in the country.

A nationwide plebiscite, however, is precisely what Rio Tinto fears, according to a redacted readout – obtained by BIRN – of a meeting between company officials and the European Union delegation in Serbia on March 25 last year, two months after the project was officially cancelled.

Rio Tinto: ‘We haven’t given up’

With demand for electric vehicle batteries on the rise, Rio Tinto says the lithium mine in the area of Loznica, western Serbia, would be the biggest in Europe and make the company one of the top 10 lithium producers in the world.

The project has strong backing from the UK, Australia, United States, and the EU. The latter imports almost all of the lithium it uses but has ambitions to secure an entire supply chain of battery minerals and materials, with demand for lithium predicted to grow 18 times by 2030 and 60 times by 2050.

Serbia stands to benefit from some 2,100 construction jobs and an injection of roughly 200 million euros per year into the domestic supply chain, Rio says. Environmentalists, however, fear huge damage to water and land in western Serbia, while some Serbs say they feel steamrollered by the powerful multinational mining giant.

Facing an election in April 2022, the government scrapped the project in the January, but Rio Tinto has not gone away.

Between June 2022 and January 2023, the company has paid some 1.2 million euros for 5.78 hectares of land via seven separate contracts with residents in the proposed mining site, BIRN found by analysing and cross-matching data from state cadastral records.

Then in January, Rio Tinto announced a programme of to support sustainable local development in the Loznica area via financial grants for local enterprises.

The company has not hidden its ambition to revive what chief executive Jakob Stausholm called in December an “amazing asset.”

“We need to figure out how to go about it,” Stausholm was quoted by Reuters as telling an investor briefing in Sydney. “The only thing I would say today is we haven’t given up.”

Asked about its continued land purchases, Rio Tinto told BIRN: “The purchase of the land is a continuation of the previously undertaken obligations of the Rio Sava company,” referring to its local subsidiary.

Pressed for clarification of these “obligations”, the company did not respond.

Regarding its support for local businesses, Rio Tinto said it was part of the company’s “commitment to the communities in which it operates” and has nothing to do with any potential referendum.

Rio Tinto reiterated that it still believes the Jadar project “has the potential to be a world-class operation that could support the development of other future industries in Serbia, acting as a flywheel for tens of thousands of new jobs for current and future generations, and the sustainable production of materials that are key to the energy transition.”

The environmental campaign group ‘Mars sa Drine’ [Get off the Drina], which opposes the Jadar project, said it had warned all along that the cancellation of the mine was a charade, but that its fate would ultimately be decided by the public.

“Rio Tinto buys people off with offers of cash, and now, in a genius marketing move, they act like a humanitarian organization that invests in local crafts,” Jovana Amidzic, a representative of the group, told BIRN. “Rio Tinto can stay on that land for 40 years, but there will be no mines.”

Nationwide referendum risks ‘more complicated dynamic’

Reviving the project without some kind of referendum risks a major public backlash against Vucic’s Progressives.

At a meeting with the EU delegation in Serbia on March 25 last year, Rio Tinto representatives appeared to be open to a local poll among villagers in the affected area, but not necessarily a wider plebiscite.

“A referendum could indicate the will of the inhabitants of the 12 villages of the area of Loznica, who according to the company would be the key players in the execution of the project, and those who would benefit the most,” a redacted summary of the meeting reads. “A local referendum would thus favour the company.”

“A nationwide referendum including Belgrade, where the most negativity comes from, could produce a more complicated dynamic,” the document adds.

BIRN received the summary from an EU citizen who obtained it from the European Commission on the basis of a Freedom of Information request. BIRN obtained another copy of the document from another EU citizen, who had also submitted an FOI to the Commission, but in the second document the reference to Rio Tinto’s misgivings about a national referendum was blacked out.

The Commission shortly told BIRN that it was “a clerical error”.

BIRN received the summary of the Rio Tinto’s meeting with EU Delegation from an EU citizen who obtained it from the European Commission on the basis of a Freedom of Information request, which makes clear the company’s fear of a national referendum on the issue.

BIRN obtained another copy of the document from another EU citizen, who had also submitted an FOI to the Commission, but in the second document the reference to Rio Tinto’s misgivings about a national referendum was blacked out.

In its response for this story, Rio Tinto did not comment directly on the possibility of a referendum, saying it was a matter for “the competent authorities” in Serbia.

Amidzic of Mars sa Drine said that Rio Tinto’s fear of a national referendum only underscored the strength of public resistance, even though the country’s president and government were firmly behind the mine.

“Even with all the machinery of Vucic’s rule over the media, the people’s resistance is clear to them,” Amidzic said, adding that regardless of whether the project is put to a referendum, it is already in violation of the law. “There are legal processes that have not been followed, and therefore we can see that this project cannot be realised according to legal regulations because it is catastrophic in terms of its impact on biodiversity, people’s health, water, air and land”.

Project aborted, but approval pending

Calling off the project on January 20, 2022, Serbia’s government terminated a decree concerning the spatial plan of the special purpose area for the Jadar project and, five days later, annulled a decision by the Ministry of Environmental Protection regarding the environmental impact study.

“All administrative acts related to Rio Tinto, i.e. Rio Sava, all permits, decisions, and everything else has been annulled,” Brnabic declared in the wake of mass protests. “With this, as far as the Jadar and Rio Tinto project is concerned, everything is over.”

However, Rio Tinto’s request for the approval of the exploitation field, submitted on January 6, 2021, is still pending, Ministry of Mining confirmed to Mars sa Drine organization.

BIRN asked the Ministry of Mining why the request is still officially under consideration if the project has already been aborted, but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.

In November last year, the government also signed declarations of intent with Slovakian battery maker InoBat to build an electric vehicle battery factory in Serbia, Reuters reported. Rio Tinto is an investor in InoBat.

Activists and the opposition say this all points to a likely revival of the Jadar project.

Meanwhile, a proposal to ban the mining of lithium and boron in Serbia, signed by more than 38,000 people and submitted to parliament last year, has still to come before the competent committee of ministry, despite rules that it should do so within 30 days.

Radomir Lazovic, an MP of the opposition Green-Left Coalition, said the so-called ‘People’s Initiative’ was being kept from lawmakers on someone’s orders.

“At every session and at every opportunity I asked what’s happening with the People’s Initiative,” Lazovic told BIRN.

“I managed to get answers from the Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-Government, and now the answer has arrived from the Committee for Constitutional Affairs and Legislation that this document never reached them, which can only mean one thing – that someone deliberately removed it from the regular procedure.”

BIRN sent inquiries to the Serbian president’s office and the Serbian government about the Rio Tinto lithium project, but received no response by the time of publication.

Australian-Serbian actress-turned-activist and campaigner tells BIRN that fighting for better air and healthier soil is more important than taking glamorous Hollywood roles.

Bojana Novakovic is a theatre but also a well-known film and TV actress, starring in popular award-winning movies and series. Currently, she is in the centre of attention for her roles in two series, “Love me”, which explores modern intimate partnerships and crime drama “Instinct”, where she co-stars with Alan Cumming. 

She is also known for her roles in Burning man, Edge of Darkness with Mel Gibson and many others, and for classics such as the Oscar-winning I Tonya and multiple Emmy-awarded series “Shameless” and “Westworld”.

But since moving to Australia in 1988, as a seven-year-old, Novakovic, now 41, was not so famous in Serbia until recently. And surprisingly, it is not so much for her acting but for her activism. 

Novakovic has become one of the leading faces of Serbia’s growing eco-movement, which is currently focused on stopping the controversial lithium mining project of global mining giant Rio Tinto.

“They often ask me why I needed this. I could stay in my safe zone, acting and traveling, but sometimes I am offended by these questions,” Novakovic told BIRN in an interview.

“Do I need a reason to care about public health or collective happiness? Why do they need to ask me why I fight for better air and healthier soil in my country?” she asks.

She welcomes the fact that this is one of the rare interviews in which she is asked explicitly about her activism, or “social organizing”, as she calls it, not about her acting career and its glamour.

“I would be much more successful commercially if I was not doing this [activism]. When I do an interview, they always want me to talk like about, say, starring with Keanu Reeves, or shooting in an exotic location in Japan, and are dazzled when I say: ‘I am in Serbia, coordinating a campaign against the Rio Tinto lithium mining project,” Novakovic says. 

Novakovic has become a main face of the “Mars sa Drine” [“Get off the Drina”] campaign, which opposes the so-called Jadar lithium mine. She claims Rio Tinto has a “horrible reputation” and does not want it in the country

“It is not just a fight against the project, it is a fight for survival. The essence is to preserve what we have in ways that are healthy and not continue over-production and exploitation. This [project] is just packaged as healthy; it’s just marketing and it will not bring anything good to ordinary people,” she told BIRN.

From school protests to nationwide campaigns

Novakovic’s family has been always political, which has influenced her own social awareness. The fact that they left Yugoslavia just few years before the 1990s wars, which resulted in horrible crimes and the dissolution of a country, was another important factor.

“We did not have internet at the time, but we were following the news and my parents made constant calls to Yugoslavia, talking to friends and relatives in order to compare facts and see how they are doing,” Novakovic recalls. “I grew up in that kind of environment. There was always talks about politics and news on the TV,” she adds.

In the winter of 1996–1997, university students and opposition parties organized a series of peaceful protests in Serbia against the attempted electoral fraud of the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. Surprisingly, she was also there.

“They say to me, ‘You do not know how it was in the Nineties here’, and I say: ‘I do know, I was there!” she says, laughing: “My dad, I, who was a 15-year-old at the time, and my five-year-old sister came to Belgrade at the protests and practically spent three months on the streets.”

However, that was not her first step into activism. The year before, aged only 14, she organized an anti-nuclear protest in Sidney.

“We ended up on the news, like 3,000 students protesting, some schools were locked in order that others would not join us, we gathered in front of the French embassy, it was crazy,” Novakovic explains.

Novakovic later on volunteered to work with refugees during her time at college, since refugees and migrants are treated roughly in Australia, she says. As a by then established actress, she also worked in Los Angeles on jail reforms with different associations.

However, the campaign against Rio Tinto project was first time she entered the spotlight as an activist in a “leading role”.

“I never looked for it, it just happened,” she says. “The Kreni-promeni [Move-Change] organization called, since they’d seen me on a protest against police violence in US, and asked me for tips how to send a petition to the UN,” she recalls.

“After that, we organized a huge zoom meeting with activists and many Serbs in the diaspora who wanted to help as well, and realized that this is our struggle, the key issue. Everything just went on after that naturally,” she says.

Trump election was a wakeup call

From a young age, she says, her worldview had been linked with “the injustices of the global system”, but the year 2016 and Donald Trump’s election as President of United States was a turning point for her, when she became more active.

“When he won the election, I was like: ‘How is this possible, what world are we are living in?’ That pushed me more to learn about the history and systematic construction of the ‘westworld’ – about colonialism and the corporate – not political – system in the US,” she explains.

Asked why she dislikes Rio Tinto so much, she says that “wherever they go, there make problems for local people”, adding that she has worked with some Australian Aborigines who were victims of Rio Tinto misconduct in 2020.

“Also, to be clear, the lithium itself does not solve anything. Lithium will not create an electric car and for batteries you need cobalt … which comes from Congo, and we all know what is going on there,” she says.

“We do not want lithium mined in Serbia, we want those villages to remain green areas with fertile land, where food can be grown and where there are hundreds of species of animals, as there are right now,” Novakovic told BIRN.

According to Novakovic, industry needs to adapt and adjust to already existing resources and create a sustainable system of resource extraction.

“The solution is not to save the car industry, but green surfaces and biodiversity. The idea of mining a green area and calling it ‘green transition’ is absurd; it is crystal clear that profits are behind it all,” she insists.

Asked how her activism has affected her acting career, she says that it is tough, but that she was always like this, often refusing roles that could have made her wildly rich and famous.

“My father tried to teach me how to enter more commercial world and make healthier decisions for my career but I never make many compromises. Now I would make them, but I am too old for it,” she says, laughing, adding that she once refused a role in a sci-fi movie with Bruce Willis because the director wanted her to be naked.

Asked whether she think the campaigners will tire of the battle, since many powerful actors support the Rio Tinto Serbia project, she says no.

“The ruling [Serbian Progressive] party led by President Aleksandar Vucic} is putting a lot of pressure on us. Vucic is a neo-liberal, the nationalistic stuff is just a pose for voters, and he is ready to sell everything. The company [Rio Tinto] has a lot of money and they are very good at their jobs and creating anxiety – but that will not scare us,” Novakovic told BIRN.

“They are very patient – but so are we,” she concluded.

If, in addition to 11,400 tons of metal lithium, 100,000 electric cars were produced annually in Serbia, this would increase carbon dioxide emissions by at least 1.15 million tons or by an additional 3.5 percent.

In addition to the justified concern for damage (pollution of underground and surface water, devastation of forests and agricultural land…) that can be produced by the mine and processing plants for obtaining compounds of lithium and boron in the Jadar valley, there are also less well-known harmful consequences that these activities, and possibly starting the production of electric cars in Serbia, can have.

According to data published in February 2021 by the Rio Sava Exploration company itself, the mine would annually produce about 60,000 tons of lithium carbonate (Li2CO2) or about 11,400 tons of metallic lithium. Without going into the issue of mining, the brochure states that the processing plant would consume… 80.8 million cubic meters of natural gas per year, which would increase the consumption of that energy source in Serbia by 3.1 percent, given that In 2020, 2,265.96 million cubic meters were consumed.

The annual emission of carbon dioxide CO2, the main cause of global warming, in the technological process of lithium carbonate and boric acid production would be between 526,000 and 620,000 tons, which is an increase of 1.22 to 1.44 percent of the total emission in Serbia, which in 2020 amounted to 43 million tons. In that estimate, in addition to CO2 emissions, due to the burning of 80.8 million cubic meters of natural gas and during the production of other necessary chemicals that would be used in the technology of obtaining lithium carbonate and boric acid, as well as the effects of the use of 60,000 tons of calcium oxide (quick lime ), 320,000 tons of sulfuric acid, 188,000 tons of different types of cement, 110,000 tons of sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) for the deposition of lithium carbonate, while on the other hand, the destruction of more than 520 hectares of forest and agricultural land will permanently destroy the assimilation of atmospheric carbon dioxide . This assessment does not include gas emissions from various means of transport, bulldozers, trucks, commercial passenger cars, necessary for the functioning of the mine, production plant and administration.

According to official announcements, Serbia is ready to invest significant funds in a gigafactory for the production of lithium-ion accumulator batteries (LIB), and later also electric cars. With an optimistic estimate that 100,000 electric cars with a 50kWh energy battery will be produced annually, this would increase carbon dioxide emissions by an additional 500,000 tons or 1.16 percent, as it is known that one kWh energy batteries emit about 100 kilograms of CO2 during production. For the production of electric cars without batteries, which include various metals, plastics, glass, rubber, approximately five to six tons of CO2 are emitted per vehicle, or 500,000 to 600,000 tons for 100,000 vehicles, which would increase emissions by 1.16 to 1.4 percent.

All together, the production of lithium and 100,000 electric cars would annually emit about 1,150,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, which means that the annual emission of greenhouse gases would increase by at least 3.5 percent.

In other words, each car would emit about 11,500 kilograms of CO2. The same amount of CO2 would be emitted by the consumption of 4,420 liters of diesel in ordinary cars (a liter of diesel releases 2.6 kilograms of CO2). This means that with an average consumption of five liters per 100 kilometers, a diesel car would travel 88,400 kilometers before the electric car even leaves the factory.

The EU is planning or has introduced taxes of 50 euros per ton of CO2, so increased emissions would expose Serbia to a cost of at least 75 million euros per year (50 euros times 1,150,000 tons). In addition, it should be noted that the production of just one kWh of lithium-ion battery requires 328kWh of different types of energy, and Serbia, in addition to importing gas and oil, has been importing electricity for more than a year, and the prices of all energy products are at record levels.

With all that, even if Serbia were to produce 100,000 electric cars a year, which is unlikely, with a 50kWh battery, it would require about 800 tons of lithium metal. So, only seven percent of the total annual production in Jadar, while Rio Tinto could sell the remaining 93 percent to whoever it wants. Of course, Serbia would also buy lithium from them at realistic, market prices.

In addition to lithium (its share ranges from four to ten percent), positive (cathode) materials contain many other expensive and rare metals, cobalt, manganese and nickel, which Serbia does not have and would have to be imported, and the price of cobalt on the world market has varied from 30,000 to 90,000 dollars per ton in the last five years…

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