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

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.

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…

For the full article click here.

Concerned about the huge threat of destruction that the proposed Jadar lithium mine would pose to Nature in Serbia, the international organisation Earth Thrive, which deals with the rights of Nature in Europe, worked with local organisations Protect Jadar and Radjevina and the international Earth Law Center partners on a Complaint to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Flora and Wildlife Habitats, based on the potential endangerment of protected species in the area of the proposed mine.

You can read more about this here.

Serbia pulled the plug this year on a $2.4 billion lithium mining project. Here’s how it all began, and why it’s still not over.

In 1997, a letter from Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto landed on the desk of Professor Jelena Obradovic at Belgrade’s Faculty of Mining and Geology.

In the mid-1990s, a team led by Obradovic and involving her then research assistant, Nenad Grubin, had conducted an analysis of areas in the former Yugoslavia that they believed might hold deposits of borate and lithium. They produced a series of journal articles that Rio Tinto says caught the eye of its own researchers in the United States.

Following the letter, Rio Tinto dispatched a team of geologists and Grubin gave them a tour of western Serbia, one region that the faculty’s team had identified as potentially a good place to explore.

“Together with the guests, we visited the fields around Valjevo, Gornji Milanovac, Zlatibor, Aleksinac, Raska,” Grubin told BIRN. “Apart from field trips, we had meetings at the faculty, we visited mines in Serbia, in order to get a picture of the geology and mining of our fields, as well as our country itself.”

At the time, Serbia was still an international pariah under Slobodan Milosevic, who would be toppled by popular street protests in 2000. When the country opened up its market, Rio Tinto wasted little time in establishing a Serbian subsidiary in 2001, with Grubin at the helm.

Three years later, the company struck ‘white gold’ in western Serbia, kicking off a venture that promised to become the biggest lithium mine in Europe until environmentalists and worried residents whipped up a protest movement that this year forced the government to call it off.

This is the story of how it all began, and why some Serbs believe it won’t stop.

First time lucky

As he described it in a text he authored for the Serbian newspaper Politika in October last year, Grubin “loved teaching and science, but my entrepreneurial and research spirit kicked in so I moved to Rio Tinto.”

It was 2001; Milosevic had just been overthrown and the West was lifting sanctions that, alongside the effects of a decade of war, had crippled the Serbian economy and driven a dramatic ‘brain drain’ of talent.

Grubin had left Serbia for Canada with his family in 1999, working part-time as a “contract geologist” for Rio Tinto, he told BIRN, on projects in Ontario and concerning the former Yugoslavia. He officially left the faculty in Belgrade in 2001 and became Rio Tinto’s director in Serbia.

“When foreign investors appeared, a large number of our geologists found refuge there,” recalled Zoran Stevanovic, a retired professor of the Faculty of Mining and Geology and former president of the Serbian Geological Society. “They moved to foreign companies, but also their knowledge, and certain maps and data they had, moved with them. It’s hard to blame them for wanting to do their job somewhere,” he said, citing a lack of state funding or support for geological research.

In 2004, working in the Jadar River basin of western Serbia for Rio Tinto, Grubin was one of four geologists who were credited with discovering ‘jadarite’, a new mineral made up of both borates and lithium and which, to the delight of headline writers around the world, was found three years later to boast a chemical make-up almost identical to that ascribed to the green Kryptonite that saps Superman’s powers in the 2006 movie ‘Superman Returns’.

Rio Tinto had only just received its exploration permit, which, Grubin recalled in a March 2021 interview with Bizlife, “covered a huge area of more than sixty square kilometres, which is only a part of the entire basin. We had a budget for only two wells, but we succeeded at the first attempt.” Grubin told BIRN they had been looking for borate, not necessarily lithium. Finding jadarite with the first drill was “phenomenal news for us,” he said.

Some 15 years later, Rio Tinto was readying the ground for a $2.4 billion lithium mine that would position the company, for the next 15 years at least, as the largest supplier in Europe of the soft, silvery-white metal that is essential to the batteries powering the electric cars that are supposed to replace fossil-fuel vehicles on Europe’s roads.

‘It’s over’. But is it?

In 2020, Rio Tinto registered gross sales revenue of $44.6 billion, or roughly $8 billion shy of the total value of the Serbian economy that year. And it was flexing its muscles.

Rio Tinto donated to local communities, hospitals, schools and cultural centres and, according to the Centre for Investigative Journalism Serbia, CINS, bought up more than 40 per cent of the 250 acres of land where the mine would be located.

In July last year, Loznica local authorities amended the municipality’s spatial plan in order to align it with the spatial plan already adopted for the special purpose area of the Jadar project, previously adopted by Governments Decree. Agricultural land was reclassified as construction land, railway lines were moved and gas pipeline plans changed. All that, even before the project had received the necessary permits.

According to the Podrinje Anti-Corruption Team, PAKT, an NGO in western Serbia and fierce critic of the Rio Tinto project, the Faculty of Mining and Geology has earned more than million euros from Rio Tinto for research work. Professor Biljana Abolmasov, the dean of the faculty, told BIRN the sum was around one million, but over a period of 17 years. “The work of our experts costs,” she said, but denied Rio Tinto had any influence over the objectivity of the faculty’s staff. Rio Tinto has not confirmed the sum.

Environmentalists, however, warned of huge potential damage to water and land in western Serbia, regardless of Rio Tinto’s vow to invest $100 million in environmental protection.

In January this year, following months of escalating protests and growing public anger, Serbia’s government announced it had blocked the project. “Everything is finished. It’s over,” Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said, possibly with one eye on an April 4 election in which the ruling Progressive Party and its leader, President Aleksandar Vucic, fear losing control of the capital, Belgrade.

But lithium mining in Serbia did not die. Rio Tinto remains. As do four other companies, some of them with ties to Grubin’s older brother, Jovan, and a host of former Rio Tinto employees.

“You need to be extremely naive to believe Vucic’s jiggery-pokery,” said Miroslav Mijatovic, head of PAKT.

“The company [Rio Tinto] registered another plot on February 11, and they actually act on the field as if absolutely nothing happened,” Mijatovic added, alluding to cadastral data and the accounts of locals that show Rio Tinto continues to buy up land in the Jadar basin and has registered ownership of three new plots since January 27 this year.

Serbian President Vucic, PM Ana Brnabic met Rio Tinto delegation. June 2021. Photo: Serbia’s Presidency

Biologist Vladimir Stevanovic, president of the Committee for the Study of Flora and Vegetation at the Serbian Academy of Arts and Science, SANU, said he had no doubt lithium exploration in Serbia would continue given the interest of foreign firms.

“There is no doubt about it,” he said. “The government’s move to stop the Rio Tinto project for now is just a way to pacify the rebels. Unfortunately, we became a colony for the extraction of natural resources. But lithium exploitation under those circumstances is just slaying an ox for a pound of meat.”

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ONLY RED-ROOFED HOUSES interrupt the vast carpet of fields that surround the village of Gornje Nedeljice, in western Serbia. To resident Marijana Petković, this is the most beautiful place in the world. She’s not against Europe’s green transition, the plan to make the bloc’s economy climate neutral by 2050. But she is among those who believe Serbia’s fertile Jadar Valley—where locals grow raspberries and keep bees—is being asked to make huge sacrifices to enable other countries to build electric cars.

Around 300 meters away from Petković’s house, according to the multinational mining giant Rio Tinto, there is enough lithium to create 1 million EV batteries, and the company wants to spend $2.4 billion to build Europe’s biggest lithium mine here. But Petković and other locals oppose the project, arguing it will cause irreparable damage to the environment. When asked about that claim, a spokesperson for Rio Tinto told WIRED that throughout the project, the company has “recognized that Jadar will need to be developed to the highest environmental standards.” Petković is not convinced. “I want the western countries to have the green transition and to live like people in Jadar,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean that we need to destroy our nature.”

Officially, the Jadar mine is not happening. After months of protests against the project, the government conceded, and in January it was canceled. “As far as Project Jadar is concerned, this is an end,” Serbian prime minister Ana Brnabić said on January 20, after Rio Tinto’s lithium exploration licenses were revoked.

There is widespread suspicion, however, that the project was canceled to stop protests overshadowing the presidential and parliamentary elections on April 3, and could restart if the government is reelected. “This might have been a pre-election ploy,” says Florian Bieber, a professor of southeast European history and politics at Austria’s University of Graz. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the government picks up this issue again once the elections are done, because they see the economic benefits.” A Rio Tinto shareholder expressed a similar expectation to Reuters, adding they expect the mine to be renegotiated after the vote. Rio Tinto denies this is its intention and says it has not planned or implemented any activities contrary to the project’s legal status.

Europe has big plans to phase out fossil-fuel cars. In July, the European Union proposed a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035. The bloc wants to replace those cars with electric vehicles, built with locally produced raw materials like lithium. The top lithium producers are currently Australia, Chile, and China. But Europe has ambitions to produce more of the materials it needs for electric cars at home. These materials “are extremely expensive to ship and are transported across the world several times over,” says Emily Burlinghaus, a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Germany. “So it’s much cheaper and much safer to have these operations close to battery manufacturing plants or auto manufacturing plants.”

For Europeans it’s also a security issue. “We cannot allow [the EU] to replace [its] current reliance on fossil fuels with dependency on critical raw materials,” said  Maroš Šefčovič, the commission vice president for inter-institutional relations, in 2020.

The problem is that Europeans don’t trust mining companies in their backyards. The resistance that Rio Tinto has faced in Serbia is not unique. Portugal also witnessed protests against lithium mining in October. The following month, mining company Vulcan Energy “paused” its lithium operation in Germany’s Upper Rhine region after facing community opposition to its plans. But the ferocity of Serbia’s opposition to the mine marks a major problem for the European Union’s ambitions to source lithium from closer to home. In 2020, Šefčovič said the EU cannot achieve its climate goals without raw materials like lithium, adding that the bloc will need 18 times more lithium by 2030, and 60 times more by 2050.

Rio Tinto’s charm offensive in Gornje Nedeljice started soon after the mining group discovered an entirely new type of mineral in the area in 2004. The mineral, called jadarite in tribute to the Jadar Valley where it was found, contained both borates and lithium—two materials that Rio Tinto says have a role in the green transition. Lithium is used in EV batteries while borates can be used in wind and solar projects.

In the years that followed, activists say, Rio Tinto employees made an effort to immerse themselves in village life. They turned up to villagers’ weddings and celebrated religious holidays with them. Adverts were also beamed onto local TVs telling villagers if they work with Rio Tinto, together they could save the planet.

Relations with locals were good in these years, according to Petković, who is a member of the local campaign group Ne Damo Jadar. The villagers weren’t too worried when Rio Tinto said it wanted to build a modest mine on just 20 hectares. “They said it is going to be a modern mine that will not damage nature,” Petković says. But last year, locals discovered that plans for their village had drastically changed. Rio Tinto wanted to build on 600 hectares, nearly the size of 10,000 tennis courts.

“We started to fight against the mine when they found out the company was lying to us for 14 years; when we found out how big the mine really is,” says Petković. Environmental concerns also started to emerge.

The Guardian obtained a study, funded by Rio Tinto, which outlined how the mine would cause irreversible changes to ecosystems and local rivers. The study recommended “the abandonment of planned exploitation and processing of the mineral jadarite.”

It was at this point that local anger toward Rio Tinto ignited national frustration toward Serbia’s relationship with foreign mining companies. Investors are drawn to the small country because it borders the EU but does not have the same strict regulations, says Bieber.

In April, thousands of people took part in protests in the capital Belgrade that became known as Serbia’s “environmental uprising.” Those protests continued on and off through the rest of the year. The movement “is not about one company,” says Žaklina Živković, an activist with the Right to Water initiative, adding that the government plans to open 40 mines in the next 15 years, including seven lithium mines. “Rio Tinto is a metaphor for all of the different investors and all the mines that are being planned in Serbia,” Živković says.

Arriving soon after a year marked by protests, this weekend’s election was supposed to be the breakthrough movement for Serbia’s environmentalists, says Engjellushe Morina, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Just as we were expecting that there will be a bit of a win for environmentally friendly movements in Serbia, we have the Russia debate,” she says, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

She believes the return of war to Europe has empowered the ruling coalition parties and the incumbent president, Aleksandar Vučić. The ruling coalition which approved the mine, led by president Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party, was comfortably leading in polls as of Thursday.

Back in the village of Gornje Nedeljice, Petković has the sense that Rio Tinto is not worried about the election’s outcome. She believes the company has invested too much to stop, whatever the result. The miner has created its own technology to extract the jadarite, which is found nowhere else in the world. Since the government canceled the project, Petković says, there have been no signs Rio Tinto is preparing to leave. The machinery stayed, and the miner kept buying up local real estate, she claims.

On March 30 another activist organization, Marš sa Drine, published the details of a phone call that they claim proves Rio Tinto is preparing to restart work on the mine after the election. The phone call was between a University of Belgrade professor involved in the Rio Tinto project and an anonymous source impersonating an employee of Rio Sava, Rio Tinto’s Serbian subsidiary. In the conversation, the two discuss the arrival of equipment from the German company DMT and an Austrian company called Thyssen, which the professor said is “likely” to arrive in April. Neither DMT, Thyssen, nor the professor replied to WIRED’s request for comment. In a statement, a Rio Tinto spokesperson described the “alleged” recording as “misinformation,” adding that the agreement with the two suppliers was signed before its permission for the mine was withdrawn.

“They lied to us in January,” Marš sa Drine said on Twitter, urging their followers to vote against the project on Sunday. “Why is ANY equipment, no matter whether it’s a bolt or a bulldozer, being discussed within the context of a project that has been CANCELED?”

Some believe that Rio Tinto has faced so much opposition in Serbia because of the company’s legacy, associated with multiple cases of environmental damage. “Mining companies have been viewed so negatively historically that it doesn’t matter in the eyes of the public if they are transitioning to minerals that are being used for the energy transition,” says Burlinghaus.

Resistance to EV mining across Europe is not Nimbyism, says Diego Marin, associate policy officer for environmental justice at the NGO the European Environmental Bureau. “Communities are saying, ‘We’re having our areas devastated and sacrificed to make what? Cars for rich people that our communities can never afford,’” he says. “In the end, we pay the price that our air gets cleaner but our land gets poorer.” It’s not that these activists don’t want clean air. But an idea is beginning to spread among green groups in Europe: that the green transition is turning into a capitalism rebrand that is still focused on planet-harming mass production.

“The purpose of the green transition is to make an industrial transition sound like it fits in with a solution to a problem that cannot be solved through industry,” says Bojana Novakovic, an activist with Marš sa Drine and also an actress.

Officials have tried to reassure Europeans that this is a new era of mining. “Mining in the past was a very dirty operation,” said Peter Handley, head of the European Commission’s raw materials unit, speaking at a conference on “green” mining in Lisbon last year. “It is becoming highly technological these days.”

But Europe’s environmentalists are divided on whether “green” mining is possible, even by new companies that are untarnished by their history. “I don’t care whether Mother Teresa wants to extract lithium from the Jadar Valley; she wouldn’t be doing it on my watch,” says Novakovic. “There is no green way to extract lithium from fertile soil. Period. It has never been done before.”

Abstract

The realization of the “Jadar” project is planned in the vicinity of the town of Loznica, on several thousand hectares of forest and agricultural land as well as urban areas. Opening of mines, formation of landfills, exploitation of groundwater, treatment of ore with sulfuric acid, construction of access roads, and permanent change of land use will irreversibly change and degrade the existing landscape and endanger biodiversity. The eventual beginning of the exploitation of the mineral jadarite implies massive earthworks, subsidence of the terrain on almost 850 hectares, and backfilling of the upper part of the Štavica stream basin. The significant potential of the already defined tourist region, with sites of cultural-historical and spiritual significance, will be irretrievably destroyed. The displacement of the local population, permanent elimination of opportunities for advanced and profitable agricultural production, the constant risk of air, water, and soil pollution, essentially diminish the economic and ecological perspective of Radjevina. The town of Loznica is located at a short distance from dangerous pollutants such as tailing dumps of the mines “Stolice” (antimony ore) and “Zajača” (antimony and lead ores), and in the city area, there is an abandoned factory complex “Viskoza”, with huge amounts of toxic and carcinogenic substances. The “Jadar” project is located only 15 kilometers from the center of Loznica. Rio Tinto’s current international reputation does not instil confidence in the safety of production processes, environmental protection, and treatment of workers. The benefit for the state of Serbia is particularly unclear considering the fact that hardly any compensation could make up for such a massive spatial degradation and a permanent risk to the health and safety of the population. 

Keywords: spatial degradation, pollution, biodiversity, natural capital, public interest

1. Introduction

Passenger cars are the source of about 12% of carbon emissions in Europe, while the Paris Agreement requires a reduction of 37.5% by 2030, which is in line with the EU’s plan to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions by 55% [1]. At the same time, a ban on the sales of fossil-powered vehicles is proposed, with an increase in the number of electric vehicles from the current 2 to 40 million, by 2030. European manufacturers import almost all lithium that is installed in car batteries, mobile phones and laptops. Almost 55% of the world’s total lithium production is in Australia, followed by Chile (23%), China (10%), and Argentina (10%) [1].

The mineral jadarite, which was discovered in the Jadar valley, near Loznica, is presented as one of the most promising natural materials for the production of batteries, due to its high lithium content, which is the most important component for the production of rechargeable batteries used in electric vehicles.

2. Location and basic characteristics of the “Jadar” project

The planned location of the mine, accompanying infrastructure and production facilities is in the western part of Serbia, on the border with Republika Srpska, i.e. Bosnia and Herzegovina, about 15 km from the town of Loznica (Figure 1), in a highly agricultural area (Figure 2) with several thousand inhabitants. According to the available spatial planning documentation [2], the planned location will occupy the territory of the villages of Gornja Nedeljica, Brezjak, Slatina, Brnjac, Veliko Selo, Jarebica, Stupnica, and Shurice, with a population of about 4,000 people, in 1,422 households, in order to create conditions for the annual production of 1.6 million tons of the jadarite ore, 286,000 tons of boric acid, 58,000 tons of lithium carbonate and 259,000 tons of sodium sulfate. The planned working lifetime of the mine is 30-60 years, with 500-700 workers mostly employed in underground exploitation. The deposit of the jadarite ore extends 3 km in the west-east direction and 2.5 km in the north-south direction and corresponds to the so-called “Lower Jadarite zone”, with estimated reserves of about 136 million tons (Figure 3).

Figure 1. The wider and narrower locations of the “Jadar” project (PJ)

Exploitation fields cover an area of ​​more than 100 ha and can be expanded by up to 500 meters, measured from the defined limit, to form the so-called “protective space” which is in the function of further mining activities, i.e. the expansion of the space provided for mining activities can be expected (Article 71, Law on Mining and Geological Research, Official Gazette of the RS No. 101/2015, 95/2018 and 40/2021).

Figure 2. Typical agricultural landscape in the Jadar valley (Photo: Ratko Ristić)

3. Research results

The preliminary estimated spatial coverage of the Jadar project is 2,031-2,431 ha [2]. Already in the initial phase of project implementation, 533 ha of land would be destroyed, of which 203 ha of forests and 317 ha of arable land (Table 1). The excavation of jadarite would be possible only after massive earthworks, and the process of ore excavation and groundwater abstraction would lead to the subsidence of almost 850 ha of land. The establishment of landfills in the immediate coastal zone of extremely torrential watercourses of the Korenita and Jadar rivers, would create a constant threat of torrential flood waves that could destroy the protective embankments and bodies of landfills, blow up toxic waste and permanently contaminate the entire valley. This could create the possibility of transport of large quantities of pollutants to the courses of the Drina and the Sava, with unpredictable consequences for the downstream sections, which include the coast of Sabac, as well as Makis, which is the water source of Belgrade. Only one planned landfill (near the village of Gornje Nedeljice; Figure 4) occupies an area of ​​19.5 ha, with 10-meter high floors, from level 137 to level 197, with a total height of 60 meters [3]. It is planned to dispose about 9.4 million tons of material (tailings and poor ore), on a 1.5 mm thick foil, to protect groundwater reserves from the leakage of toxic substances. The Jadar valley is one of the most important groundwater reserves in Western Serbia, and its primary function should be to supply water to the population, refraining from activities that could disrupt the quality and quantity of this precious resource.

Figure 3. The layout of planned facilities and impact zones at the project location

In addition, the formation of one of the landfills is planned in the Štavica stream basin (on an area of 166 ha), where about 26,000 m³ of wood mass would be removed, which would permanently destroy the ecosystem and economic services of the existing forests: protection from erosion and torrential floods; spring recharge; the conservation of biodiversity; favorable microclimatic conditions; tourist-recreational and hunting resources. Habitat destruction and fragmentation will have a strong negative effect on the living world, which includes several hundred plant and animal species, of which 145 have the status of strictly protected and protected species [2]. The “Jadar” project usurps the potential of the planned “Podrinje-Jadar” tourist destination, which includes the protected landscape of outstanding features “Tršić-Tronoša”, a monument in Draginac and another 50 objects of architectural heritage and archaeological sites of historical, cultural and spiritual significance [2].

Figure 4. The potential location of a landfill (near the village of Gornja Nedeljica) (Photo: Ratko Ristić)

In addition, the project brings about a permanent usurpation of agricultural production, creating risks for water, air and soil pollution and transformation of a stable, nature-friendly landscape into a devastated and extremely polluted environment that diminishes the economic prospects of Radjevina and the town of Loznica.

Table 1. Complete land use change in the initial phase of the “Jadar” project implementation 

There are three major pollutants In Loznica and its immediate vicinity (Figure 5): the ruins of the abandoned complex of the cellulose factory “Viskoza” on almost 79 hectares (2 km from the city center), with large amounts of stored toxic and carcinogenic substances; the landfill of the Stolice mine (distance: 30 km) with 600,000 m³ of antimony sludge; the landfill of the “Zajača” mine with 250,000 m³ of antimony sludge and lead ore (12 km from Loznica).

Figure 5. The spatial disposition of the town of Loznica, the existing pollutants, and the planned jadarite mine 

The location of the planned jadarite mine, with accompanying infrastructure, is just 15 km from the center of Loznica. It is a source of potential pollution of water, groundwater, soil  and air. The results of soil resources research in ten villages of the Jadar and Radjevina valleys, on a total area of ​​4,821 ha [4] (villages: Bradić, Brezjak, Gornje Nedeljice, Donje Nedeljice, Donji Dobrić, Draginac, Jelav, Lipnica, Lipnički Šor, Straža), show a possible income from agricultural activities estimated at 81.96 million euros per year, or 17,000 EUR / ha.

Figure 6. The surface structure of the Štavica stream basin

A highly productive use of agricultural potentials of the Jadar and Radjevina valleys is possible with an appropriate policy of incentives of the town of Loznica and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management. The potential benefit of agricultural production far outweighs the income from ore rent and has no negative consequences on the quality of the environment and human health. In addition to that, numerous ecosystem services of the soil complex in the area of ​​the planned project,  that are expressed in monetary terms, were not evaluated: soil as a medium of water circulation, important for pedological and biological processes, the biological control of pests and disease vectors, capturing and storage of greenhouse gases, hydrological functions in erosion and flood prevention, retention of nutrients and pollutants and protection of water bodies, waste decomposition and detoxification [5], [6], [7], [8]. The minimum calculated value of the mentioned ecosystem services on the area of ​​4,821 ha is 9.642 million dollars annually. Only the hydrological functions in the prevention of soil erosion and floods are valued at 30-1,175 USD/ha, while the value of protection of water bodies from pollution ranges from 544 to 6,402 USD/ha.

4. Discussion

The announced construction of a dam on the Štavica stream, to form a tailings dump (Figure 6), causes concern in case of a breakdown and spillage of the material. There is a known case of breakdown of a tailings dam (August 4, 2014), in the central part of British Columbia (Canada), in the Mount Polley mine, when almost 25 million m³ of water and sludge, with huge amounts of toxic substances, polluted the soil, lakes and streams, and endangered the water supply, and salmon and trout habitats. The mine is owned by the Mount Polley Mining Corporation, a subsidiary of Imperial Metals, to which no legal sanctions have been applied [9]. If this happened in a highly developed and regulated country such as Canada, can anyone guarantee the safety of a similar facility on the Štavica stream? Of course, the planned removal of the forest ecosystem (150 ha) in the mentioned stream basin (clearcutting, which is prohibited by the Law on Forests – Article 9, paragraphs 1, 2, and 3) would lead to a disruption of the hydrological and psamological regime of watercourses, with a severe degradation of biological diversity. The removal of vegetation accelerates soil erosion, causes the drying of springs, disappearance of the living world in the basin and the riverbed, with a high risk of destructive torrential floods. This type of land degradation corresponds to the term “desertification” and represents a direct negation of the principles of “RIO” conventions (UNFCC-climate change, UNCBD-biodiversity, UNCCD-fight against desertification and land degradation), which have been ratified (confirmed) in the Serbian Parliament, and have the force of international laws. In addition, this project compromises the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (especially goals: 3, 6, 11, 13, 14, 15, and 16) and the accepted Agenda 2030, as well as the domestic legislation related to nature protection.

In 1896, when the rapid development of the automobile industry began, it started the mass exploitation of rubber for making automobile tires. One of the most important rubber deposits were the forests of Congo, then a Belgian colony. Leopold II, King of Belgium, ordered intensive exploitation of rubber by private companies, in conditions of unprecedented brutality against the indigenous population [10].

At least six million people were killed, several million mutilated (by cutting off of hands or entire limbs) due to non-compliance with norms or punishments. Today, 125 years later, there is again talk about the development of automobiles, this time electric vehicles, in a moment when Europe is trying to eliminate its dependence on Chinese battery manufacturers and reduce carbon emissions, while Serbian officials are promoting the Jadar project as a great development opportunity. At the same time, they either do not know or do not want to know that lithium is present in many European countries, where its exploitation in a way promoted in Serbia is not possible. Unfortunately, Serbia is being imposed the status of a modern colony, as a cheap resource base where it is possible to apply invasive, devastating technologies, with distinctly negative impacts on the environment, and the lowest possible costs for investors. This is a consequence of the hypocrisy in the relationship between European Union and Serbia, the servile attitude of the Serbian political “elite”, the present system corruption, and weakness of the legislation and ignoring of the interests of Serbian people. The “Jadar” project is presented to the Serbian public through propaganda messages about the advantages of lithium-ion batteries, the growing demand for lithium at the global level, and the “historic” chance of Serbia to be a leader in the production of batteries for electric cars. This is an extremely debatable position in line with the fact that sodium-ion and graphene batteries, as well as the application of hydrogen technology, are already being preferred when it comes to electrically powered cars. The latest generation of sodium-ion batteries shows all the required performances [11], [12], [13] and incurrs lower production costs, which is why the world’s largest manufacturer of batteries for electric cars CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.), a supplier of the Tesla Corporation, announced transition to their mass production instead of lithium-ion batteries starting in 2023 [14], [15].

GAC (Guangzhou Automobile Corporation) has announced promotion of the Aion V electric car, with graphene batteries, which allow autonomy of up to 800 km after an 8-minute charge and the use of a single set of batteries for about 1,000,000 km [16]. Germany has the largest reserves of lithium in Europe, which is dissolved in the warm groundwaters of the Rhine Valley, in the amount of 200-400 mg/l, at a depth of 3 to 5 km. The warmth is used for heating, the lithium separates on the filters and the cooled water is returned to the underground. In this process, there are no massive excavations, the use of acids or explosives, no formation of giant landfills, or the risk of water, air and soil pollution. The beginning of commercial production is planned for the middle of 2024, and already in 2025, five factories will produce about 40,000 tons of lithium per year, which is enough to produce batteries for about one million electric cars. Lithium produced in this way will be significantly cheaper, due to lower production costs. Therefore, the contracts have already been signed with leading manufacturers of batteries and electric cars [17]. In 2020, “Cornish Lithium and Geothermal Engineering Limited” Company started a project to extract lithium from warm groundwater in the Cornwall area (South West England). The average concentrations of lithium are around 220 mg/l, with small amounts of other solutes, which enables relatively cheap and environmentally safe exploitation, which is the reason for marking these reserves as “globally important” [18].

Significant lithium reserves have been identified in Finland [19], Austria [20], and Portugal [21], so that from this perspective it sounds strange to estimate that Serbia has 10% of the world’s land reserves, with suggestive messages impying that work on ore exploitation should begin as soon as possible. The growth in the number of produced electric cars leads to an increased demand of components made of specific metals and minerals, intensification of mining activities, degradation and destruction of ecosystems, pollution, and an over 38% increase of greenhouse gas emissions, than in diesel and gasoline car production [1]. The international reputation of the company “Rio Tinto” (in Spanish: red river), does not instil confidence in the safety of production processes, environmental protection, and treatment of workers. The examples of horrifying Rio Tinto practice worldwide (Panguna-Bougainville mine, Papua New Guinea; Freeport-Grasberg mine, Indonesia; mines in Cameroon, Mozambique, Madagascar) point to enormous levels of water, soil and air pollution, worker diseases and food shortages, total destruction of ecosystems, local war conflicts with thousands of victims and mass displacement of the local population [22], [23].

The company “Rio Tinto” is known for its copper, iron and gold mines, without significant references for the exploitation of lithium. Their intention to transport an experimental ore processing plant from Australia to Serbia is known, and the only location where they have their processing plant installed (with a capacity of 10 tons of lithium per year) is at the location of Boron, in California (USA). Thus, a company with no significant experience in lithium mining and processing announces “the largest lithium mine in Europe at least in the next decade.” [24].

Serbia has no material or moral obligations to destroy primary natural resources and displace its population, to support the European Union in its efforts to reduce strategic imbalances in the production of batteries for electric cars, reduce carbon emissions and provide cleaner air for the residents of London, Copenhagen, Davos or Heidelberg. A good example of the correction of the original plans is the announcement of the Portuguese government that it will suspend a lithium exploitation project in the area of ​​Montalegra (initial investment of 0.5 billion dollars), due to an unconvincing Environmental Impact Assessment Study and great pressure from the local population. The project is planned on a location that is recognized as a globally important area of ​​agricultural heritage, under the patronage of the United Nations. The planned occupation of 825 ha, the formation of mines, and ore processing capacity, the obvious threat to traditional agricultural activities, and the environmental quality triggered the mass uprising of the local population [25]. 

Of particular concern is the behavior of the Ministry of Mining and Energy, which often acts as an advocate for the interests of mining companies (foreign and domestic), neglecting the vital interests of the local population, while showing an extremely superficial attitude towards the problem of environmental protection. The so-called exploration rights for lithium (and other mineral resources) are easily granted, so in addition to Loznica, the towns of Valjevo and Jagodina, the municipalities of Požega, Gornji Milanovac and Rekovac are already targeted. Strict control over the work of this ministry is required, because it is obvious that someone sees Serbia as a cheap resource base that will give its most valuable natural potentials, regardless of the complete environmental degradation and endangering the vital interests of its population. The existence of an “Action Plan for the Displacement of the Population” [2], which deals with the relocation of the population of Jadar valley, is questionable.

The plan is already being implemented without the interference of the town of Loznica and state institutions. In the conditions of such an attack on the area where people mainly earn their living from agriculture, almost all of the land is cultivated, villages regulated, and where the harmony between human needs and nature protection is visible, the following question arises: “Whose interest is the realization of the “Jadar” project?“ However, the most difficult thing to accept is the fact that the private company “Rio Sava” (Serbian branch of “Rio Tinto”) executes the displacement of the local population through the purchase of their properties, with the tacit support of the town of Loznica and the Serbian state. After all the troubles that have befallen them in the past 30 years, are Serbian people now facing the lack of existential security in their own country?!

5. Conclusions

§  The realization of the “Jadar” project leads to massive spatial devastation, permanent change of the landscape character, degradation of biodiversity, soil, forests, water and groundwater, displacement of the local population, termination of sustainable and profitable agricultural activities;

§  A scenario of permanent risk to the health of the inhabitants of nearby villages and the town of Loznica is being established;

§  The destruction of primary natural resources, displacement of the local population, and constant risk of pollution are not indicators of pursuing the national interest;

§  Ethical, ecological and social aspects of the implementation of the “Jadar” project are unacceptable;

§  Urgent changes in legislation and strict control of the work of the Ministry of Mining and Energy are necessary;

§  The continuation of uncontrolled implementation of similar mining projects would lead to serious ecosystem disturbances, environmental degradation and would be an indicator of the inability of the state and the wider community to realize the harmfulness of such activities to the public interest;

§  The preservation of a healthy environment and respect of the existential security of the population represent basic human rights in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia.

References

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/dec/08/the-curse-of-white-oil-electric-vehicles-dirty-secret-lithium

[2] Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia: The spatial plan for the special purpose area for the realization of the project of exploitation and processing of the jadarite mineral “Jadar”, No. 26, 2020.

[3] Feasibility study of the underground exploitation of lithium and boron deposits Jadar, Faculty of Mining and Geology, University of Belgrade, November 2020. 

[4] https://www.stat.gov.rs/sr-Latn/oblasti/poljoprivreda-sumarstvo-i-ribarstvo/popis-poljoprivrede/popisni-rezultati-nivo-naselja-eksel-tabele 

[5] H.S. Sandhu, S.D. Wratten, R. Cullen, B. Case, The future of farming: The value of ecosystem services in conventional and organic arable land. An experimental approach, Ecol. Econ. Vol. 64, Issue 4, pp. 835-848, 2008,  

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2007.05.007  / 28.09.2021.

[6] P. Haygarth, L. Ritz, The future of soils and land use in the UK: Soil systems for the provision of land-based ecosystem services, Land Use Policy, Vol. 26, Supplement 1, pp.187-197, 2009.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2009.09.016 / 28.09.2021.

[7] E. Dominati, A. Mackay, S. Green, M. Patterson, A soil change-based methodology for the quantification and valuation of ecosystem services from agro-ecosystems: a case study of pastoral agriculture in New Zealand. Ecol. Econ. Vol.100, pp.119–129, 2014, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.02.008. / 29.09.2021.

[8] E.J. Dominati, A. Mackay, B. Lynch, N. Heath, I. Millner, An ecosystem services approach to the quantification of shallow mass movement erosion and the value of soil conservation practices, Ecosystem Services, vol. 9, issue C, pp. 204-215, 2014,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2014.06.006 / 29.09.2021.

[9] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/discipline-engineers-mount-polley-mine-waste-quesnel-lake-1.6137265 / 28.09.2021.

[10] R. Petrović, J. Vićentić, Europe Facing Its Colonial Past, Institute of European Studies, Belgrade 2021. 

[11] A. Rudola, A.J.R. Rennie, R. Heap, S.S. Meysami, A. Lowbridge, F. Mazzali, R. Sayers, C. J. Wright, J. Barker, Commercialisation of high energy density sodium-ion batteries: Faradion’s journey and outlook, J. Mater. Chem. A, vol. 9, 8279-8302, 2021.

[12] K. Chayambuka, G. Mulder, D. L. Danilov, P.H.L. Notten, Sodium-Ion Battery Materials and Electrochemical Properties Reviewed, Advanced Energy Materials, Vol.8, Issue 16, 2018,

https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201800079 / 26.09.2021.

[13] Y. Fang, L. Xiao, Z. Chen, Recent Advances in Sodium-Ion Battery Materials, Electrochem. Energ. Rev. Vol.1, pp.294-323, 2018, 

https://doi.org/10.1007/s41918-018-0008-x / 28.09.2021.

[14] https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Electric-cars-in-China/CATL-goes-all-in-on-next-gen-sodium-ion-EV-batteries; 

[15] https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-ev-battery-maker-adds-sodium-to-its-recipe-book-11627565026

[16] https://www.electrive.com/2021/08/22/gac-aion-v-charges-in-8-minutes/ 27.09.2021.

[17] https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/can-rhines-white-gold-power-germanys-green-e-car-race-2021-04-28/ 27.09.2021.  

[18] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk/england-cornwall-54188071 / 27.09.2021.

[19] https://www.miningmetalnews.com/20190802/1095/lithium-resources-finland-has-been-estimated / 28.09.2021.

[20] https://europeanlithium.com/wolfsberg-lithium-project/ 28.09.2021.

[21] https://www.essential-business.pt/2018/05/03/portugal-has-largest-lithium-reserves-in-western-europe/ 28.09.2021.

[22] https://londonminingnetwork.org/2010/04/rio-tinto-a-shameful-history-of-human-and-labour-rights-abuses-and-environmental-degradation-around-the-globe/ 28.09.2021

[23] R. Harkinson, Unsustainable: The Ugly Truth about Rio Tinto, Technical Report, IndustriALL Global Union, 2014,

http://www.industriall-union.org/exposing-the-uggly-truth-about-rio-tinto / 30.09.2021.

[24] https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/rio-tinto-minerals-boss-ready-to-flic-green-energy-lithium-switch-20210912-p58qx9.html / 28.09.2021.

[25] https://www.politico.eu/article/portugal-lithium-mining-project-scrap/ 28.09.2021.

[1] The University of Belgrade Faculty of Forestry, e-mail: ratko.ristic@sfb.bg.ac.rs 

[2] The University of Belgrade Faculty of Forestry, e-mail: ivan.malusevic@sfb.bg.ac.rs 

[3] The University of Belgrade Faculty of Forestry, e-mail: petar.neskovic96@gmail.com

[4] The University of Belgrade Faculty of Forestry, e-mail: angelina.novakovic@sfb.bg.ac.rs

[5] The University of Belgrade Faculty of Forestry, e-mail: sinisa.polovina@sfb.bg.ac.rs 

[6] The University of Belgrade Faculty of Forestry, e-mail: vukasin.milcanovic@sfb.bg.ac.rs 

The permits have yet to be issued and Serbian authorities have mooted the possibility of a referendum, but with so much at stake can “the voice of the people” really stop mining giant Rio Tinto’s plan to dig Europe’s biggest lithium mine in western Serbia?

In June this year, amid growing public opposition to a planned $2.4 billion lithium mine in western Serbia, President Aleksandar Vucic mooted the possibility of a referendum on the issue, “to see what the people want.”

“The voice of the people is the voice of God,” said Vucic, a former ultranationalist who, at the helm of the ruling Progressive Party, has pursued a neo-liberal economic course since taking power in 2012.

With demand for electric vehicle batteries on the rise, Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto wants to start construction work in 2022 on the ‘Jadar’ lithium mine that promises to become Europe’s biggest in terms of production and will help make the company one of the top 10 lithium producers in the world.

The project has triggered significant concern among environmentalists and some residents around the proposed site in Loznica, western Serbia, who say it will devastate the local environment, undermine agriculture and fuel depopulation.

An environmental impact assessment, or EIA, is still being conducted and permits to start work have not yet been issued.

But while Vucic has promised to listen to the people, a BIRN analysis of the steps already taken, the money involved and the networking of powerful stakeholders suggests the deal is far too big to fail, whatever the ‘voice of God’ might say.

“Are there some promises and deals behind closed doors? It’s hard to say. But Serbia’s experience shows that foreign investors were regularly protected and supported by the government,” said Zlatko Minic, a board member of Transparency Serbia, a branch of the watchdog Transparency International.

For full article go to Balkan Insight