Serbia’s government has reinstated a spatial plan for a multibillion-dollar lithium mine and processing plant, days after the Balkan state's Constitutional Court said a previous government acted improperly to halt the project amid public protests.
Anglo-Australian metals and mining giant Rio Tinto's plans for a sprawling 250-hectare complex to exploit huge mineral deposits in a fertile western valley have pitted environmental and other local opponents of the so-called Jadar project against President Aleksandar Vucic and his ruling allies for years.
But a government session on July 16 adopted a decree to restart the project immediately, based on the Constitutional Court's conclusion five days earlier that the government of then-Prime Minister Ana Brnabic had acted unconstitutionally when it withdrew permits for Rio Tinto.
"In order to implement the decision of the Constitutional Court…the government…undertakes measures to restore the legal order to the state that existed before the adoption of the regulation that was declared unconstitutional," the decree said.
The project is among the most divisive in recent memory in Serbia, where Vucic and his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) have ruled since 2012.
Serbia and the Balkans suffer from some of the worst air pollution in Europe, and Rio Tinto faced criticism for failing to publish an environmental impact study even as it scooped up land and pledged to get the mine operational by 2026. Legislative and other moves seemingly easing the expropriation of land for development exacerbated fears.
Hundreds of thousands of Serbians signed onto an online effort to stop the Jadar project after it was announced nearly two decades after the discovery there in 2004 of lithium, boron, and jadarite, a new mineral.
But Vucic and other proponents point to the benefits of billions of euros from mined lithium, a soft, silvery metal used in batteries for electric vehicles, and around 1,000 long-term jobs.
Vucic and successive SNS governments have spent years trying to open up paths to greater foreign investment for the EU candidate country of around 7 million people.
"We believe that the mine won't endanger anyone or anything, but first we need to receive guarantees from Europe that the environment and the lives of ordinary citizens will be preserved and improved with new jobs and higher wages than today," Vucic said on July 15, four days after the court ruling set the stage for the resumption of the mining plans.
Rio Tinto reportedly welcomed last week’s Constitutional Court decision.
It has touted the Jadar lithium-borates project as "one of the largest greenfield projects for the exploitation of lithium in the world."
It said it has "the potential to be a world-class asset that could act as a catalyst for the development of other industries and tens of thousands of jobs for current and future generations in Serbia, while sustainably producing battery-grade lithium carbonate, a material critical to the energy transition."
Savo Manojlovic, campaign director of the Go-Change (Kreni-Promeni) movement that opposes the mine, said after the decision that the government had "trampled the constitution and occupied institutions."
"For two years, the government was not allowed to return to the Jadar project until two cycles of early elections were completed," Manojlovic said in a statement. "Instead of its own people, the government chose to serve a foreign company -- Rio Tinto."
His group called the Constitutional Court's decision "scandalous."
Brnabic, a Vucic ally who was prime minister when the government rescinded Rio Tinto's permits amid intense public opposition in 2022, said on July 16 that she was "obviously wrong" to have halted the project.
"You know how many laws there are that were adopted by the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, to which the Constitutional Court reacted and declared parts unconstitutional. It happens," Brnabic, who is now the speaker of the Serbian National Assembly, said. "I was obviously wrong."
One of the world's top three metals and mining companies, Rio Tinto has pledged to maintain local and EU environmental and industrial standards at Jadar.
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Analysts have long cited democratic backsliding, state capture, corruption, and demographic decline among Serbia's biggest challenges.
The Podrinje Anti-Corruption Team (PAKT), which launched a challenge to the mine in 2020, has noted that Rio Tinto is now just one step away from being able to get its permit to exploit the Jadar Valley’s mineral deposits.
A lawyer for the We’re Not Giving Away Jadar (Ne Damo Jadar) association, Sreten Djordjevic, said the government's latest decision to resume the project was hasty and illegal.
Djordjevic said the process should start again at the beginning with a strategic study of the mine's potential environmental impact, especially since the nearby Cer Mountain has since been declared a protected area.
By RFE/RL
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