An official trade partnership to source critical raw materials from Serbia is looming with negotiations at the final stages of legal wrangling, Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič told Euronews during a high-level event in Brussels.

The trade deal between the EU and Serbia has been cooking for a while with the signing of a letter of intent last September — to strengthen and expand cooperation on critical raw materials and electric vehicles value chains — a clear signal that the EU executive and Belgrade were keen to join forces, provided that environmental and social acceptance challenges around the prospective mining region were sorted out.

On the sidelines of the EIT Raw Materials Summit held in Brussels this week Šefčovič referred to Serbia’s “unique position” in relation minerals listed in the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), such as high-quality lithium, which he referred to as “one of the best in the world”.

“I hope that in a short period of time we will be able to finalise the text of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU),” Šefčovič told Euronews, adding that current discussions with the Serbian government are focused on extraction, processing, refining and use of lithium.

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