After Ana Brnabić, former Prime Minister of Serbia, issued an announcement on 20 January 2022, it appeared that the nation’s story of lithium exploitation was over. ‘The regulation on the spatial plan for the Jadar project … has been repealed. We never had contracts,’ acknowledged Brnabić. ‘We have met all the demands of the environmental protests and brought an end to Rio Tinto in the Republic of Serbia.’ However the ensuing calm solely lasted till the summer time of 2024, when lithium, like a boomerang, returned to public discourse. Lithium exploitation may be very a lot again on the socio-table.
Beneath the floor
Preparations for lithium extraction in Serbia grew to become information in 2020, when residents from the western Serbian municipality of Loznica and ecological organisations uncovered multinational Rio Tinto’s meant mining challenge. Whereas the corporate’s controversial plans might have formally been stopped in 2022, locals have repeatedly reported that Rio Tinto is nonetheless buying land and finishing up preparatory work regardless of dropping its work permits. The corporate has even sponsored sports activities golf equipment and cultural occasions in locations close to the deliberate, but halted, mine. One thing is brewing beneath the floor; the challenge appears solely to be briefly on maintain.
Environmental activists and sure supportive political events, who had demanded a authorized ban on the extraction of lithium and boron ores in Gornje Nedeljice, Loznica, clearly wished to completely defend native residents. However, earlier than the overall elections in April 2022, right-wing Serbian Progressive Celebration (SNS) politicians – already in energy for a decade – had pushed the problem beneath the carpet to keep away from any political danger.
When the SNS secured a parliamentary majority, Aleksandar Vučić was re-elected as president. The governing occasion’s authoritative management, favouring nationalist subjects spiced with neoliberal financial politics, appeared assured. Nonetheless, Inexperienced representatives entered parliament for the primary time and highlighted the lithium subject at an institutional stage, elevating ceaselessly unanswered questions and calls for in parliament. Vučić insisted that an awesome alternative for growth had been missed, whereas Brnabić claimed that Serbia must pay giant sums in compensation to the multinational firm for the cancelled challenge.
Protest towards lithium mining in Belgrade on 10 August 2024. Picture by Emilija Knezevic by way of Wikimedia commons.
Snap elections and protests
Serbian socio-political points then took a sudden violent flip within the spring of 2023, when two mass shootings, during which 19 youngsters and younger folks had been killed, and 18 others had been wounded, occurred simply someday aside. The occasions shook the whole nation, sparking mass protests, which disrupted on a regular basis social buildings and led to parliamentary, Belgrade metropolis meeting, regional, and a few native elections.
In December’s snap elections, the pro-European opposition ran collectively beneath a ‘Serbia Against Violence’ banner, attaining the most effective end result for an opposition coalition since 2012, with Radomir Lazović, co-president of the Inexperienced-Left Entrance (ZLF), main the checklist. Unprecedented allegations of vote rigging additionally marked the elections, leading to new protests and a wrestle in any respect ranges to contest the outcomes. European Inexperienced and Social Democratic events performed a big position in exposing electoral fraud in Belgrade and nationally. The following political instability lasted till the Belgrade elections had been repeated alongside common native elections in early June 2024. On this rerun, the fragmented opposition, which partly boycotted the elections and campaigned towards the opposition that selected to take part, led to poorer outcomes and renewed victory for the SNS.
As soon as the elections had been over, the problem of lithium mining resurfaced. In response to knowledge from the Bureau for Social Analysis (BIRODI) monitoring the media, lithium mining was talked about solely 37 instances in nationwide broadcasts in Might 2024, 330 instances in June, and 1,045 instances in July. Most of those segments had been favourably oriented in direction of lithium extraction, although public opinion remained over 50 per cent opposed. Throughout this era, state officers primarily acted as PR brokers, loudly selling the supposed constructive features of lithium mining in Serbia.
The federal government’s place sparked public outrage. Through the summer time, a sequence of principally self-organised protests unfold throughout Serbia. The decision to motion rose in Loznica, the town closest to the deliberate mine, then expanded to just about each metropolis in Serbia, culminating in Belgrade, the place in mid-August, throughout a warmth wave on the peak of the vacation season, tens of hundreds of individuals gathered. The slogan of those protests and the whole motion, Nećeš kopati (‘you won’t dig’), grew to become widespread. Chants could possibly be heard at parliament, sporting occasions, concert events, and different mass gatherings.
Concurrently, Rio Tinto grew to become more and more current within the public sphere by way of media responses to activists, hiring lobbyists, and receiving help from inside ruling political events. It grew to become clear that the lithium exploitation challenge was again in full power in July 2024, when the Constitutional Court docket overturned the Serbian authorities’s resolution to halt the Jadar challenge, stating that it was ‘not in accordance with the Structure and the legislation‘.
After the choice, Biljana Đorđević, member of parliament and co-president of the ZLF, publicly raised a query: ‘Is former Prime Minister Ana Brnabić just incompetent for drafting an unconstitutional regulation on ending the Jadar project and thereby exposing the state to a potential lawsuit, or is she merely a corrupt lobbyist for Rio Tinto?’
The EU and German Greens
On 19 July 2024, simply days after the Constitutional Court docket’s ruling, a German and European Fee delegation visited Belgrade: Chancellor Olaf Scholz; State Secretary for Financial Affairs and Local weather Motion and Inexperienced member of the Bundestag, Franziska Brantner; European Fee Vice President for the Vitality Union, Maroš Šefčovič; and German industrialists. Their summer time go to realised a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) launching a Strategic Partnership between the Republic of Serbia and the European Union on sustainable uncooked supplies, battery worth chains, and electrical automobiles. In different phrases, Serbia has lithium reserves which can be helpful to the German automotive trade. This aligned with the European Important Uncooked Supplies Act, which goals to shorten the availability and processing chains of supplies corresponding to lithium for the web zero trade.
Contesting the Serbian authorities on democracy, media freedom, the rule of legislation, its relations with Kosovo, and points with different neighbouring international locations seems to have slipped for the sake of accessing lithium. Regardless of a change in Germany’s ruling coalition for the reason that final German Chancellor’s go to to Serbia, the objectives stay the identical. Scholz desires the identical lithium that Angela Merkel wished on her final worldwide go to and is prepared to legitimise Serbia’s autocratic regime to take action.
At a joint press convention, President Vučić talked about his joint assure on environmental safety with Franziska Brantner. Nonetheless, this constructive cooperation is in impact an try to shift duty for any potential environmental degradation from himself to Germany, particularly to the German Greens. Whereas Vučić is aware of full nicely that solely the Serbian state can decide that the challenge will meet the best environmental requirements, he nonetheless chooses to delegate duty. Vučić’s corroborative tone sends a transparent message: he may not just like the German Greens, however he considers them cheap, in contrast to home Greens opposing such a ‘great’ challenge. This technique legitimizes the president whereas trying to marginalize native inexperienced actors.
Fairly than supporting Serbians, who’re largely towards lithium mining, as illustrated by their protests and blockades, Brantner and the German Inexperienced Celebration are taking the alternative stance. It isn’t a stance that proposes how the residents of Serbia may resolve this subject internally with out exterior stress however moderately one targeted on insistently pursuing lithium for the decarbonization of a overseas automotive trade. It seems geopolitics has as soon as once more prevailed over beliefs, and the precedence is to safe Serbia’s lithium earlier than China or Russia. As Brantner states: ‘It’s not a query of ‘whether the project will happen’, however ‘whether Rio Tinto’s challenge can be carried out with European companions or the Chinese language’. I don’t consider a Chinese language-Serbian partnership could be higher for democracy, the surroundings, and the native inhabitants. Nonetheless, Brantner’s perspective overlooks how Serbian establishments are utterly undermined: there is no such thing as a rule of legislation or democracy. In such situations, the choice on lithium mining could be forcibly imposed.
Consequently, Serbian residents opposing lithium mining understand the German Inexperienced Celebration as a malignant power searching for to hurt them. They worry that Serbia may change into a sacrificial zone for the European inexperienced transition. If this stress continues, it raises the query of how lengthy it would take for Serbia and progressive political actors to get better. Help for becoming a member of the European Union would doubtless proceed to say no, although it’s already the bottom of all international locations negotiating for or within the strategy of becoming a member of the EU.
Serbian right-wing narratives that equate the EU-backed exploitation of lithium with the ‘stealing’ of Kosovo or Bosnia’s Serbian entity, Republika Srpska, by overseas powers will proceed to strengthen. Scholz and Brantner’s go to solely appears to learn Vučić and the right-wing opposition, which the president already closely influences. Serbia’s few progressive actors are left in a worsening place, having to elucidate how they’ll oppose lithium exploitation whereas nonetheless supporting EU accession, given the EU’s unethical pursuit of lithium.
The ZLF, a celebration on the verge of becoming a member of the European Inexperienced Celebration (EGP), has undertaken varied worldwide actions to indicate Serbian residents that European politics is neither homogeneous nor monolithic. Many events, organisations, and people oppose the deliberate lithium mining in Serbia. The EGP is the primary pan-European occasion to subject statements that clearly oppose the challenge. Croatia’s left-wing Inexperienced occasion, Možemo, helps Serbian residents of their wrestle, fostering regional cooperation that contrasts with the dominant nationalist narratives in each international locations.
Native activists obtain help from consultants, politicians, and their counterparts in international locations from Portugal to Georgia. Worldwide backing is crucial for broadening the motion towards an exercise that threatens environmental degradation. The event paradigm pushing for a brand new wave of extractivism and greenwashing neo-imperialism has to alter.
What’s subsequent?
United opposition events within the Serbian parliament collectively submitted a proposal to amend the mining legislation, which might impose a long-term ban on the exploration and mining of lithium and boron ore all through the nation. This proposal represents one other try to stop the lithium extraction challenge in western Serbia by way of institutional means. Whereas opposition members of parliament level out environmental, financial, social, and different dangers, the ruling occasion argues that such amendments would destroy the mining trade, although there are at the moment no energetic boron or lithium mines in Serbia. Different arguments counsel that this proposal would halt financial development, as Serbia must pay compensation to Rio Tinto. The blame is usually shifted onto the opposition for introducing the corporate to Serbia within the early 2000s, regardless of many present members of parliament having been in school or simply beginning college on the time.
Fairly than political dialogue, the SNS is asking for knowledgeable evaluation. Nonetheless, native residents of western Serbia, activists, and politicians who oppose the challenge emphasise that the time for evaluation is over; they’ve been interesting for in-depth assessments for years, with the corporate and authorities representatives avoiding accountability. After a four-day parliamentary debate in October 2024, which finally culminated in a poll moderately than a public roll name vote, the proposal to ban the exploration and mining of lithium and boron was rejected: 128 votes towards, 84 in favour.
It’s anticipated that the ruling occasion, with the assistance of its media and establishments, will now work on additional harm management and diluting the talk. Their argument asserts that there’s nonetheless time earlier than the potential building of the mine. They declare that consultants ought to solely make the choice, whereas concurrently discrediting quite a few consultants who oppose the challenge. Within the meantime, as institutional mechanisms are yielding no outcomes, native residents, activists, and different anti-mine actors are progressively getting ready for additional counteraction. Plans for brand new protests and blockades are being introduced regardless of more and more repressive state management – over 40 activists had been introduced in for questioning or arrested through the summer time for his or her position in calling for resistance to the lithium mining challenge.
Plainly ‘lithium’ will proceed to be the phrase in Serbian society within the upcoming interval. Apart from uniting the nation’s moderately heterogeneous activist and political scene, discussions about lithium mining may additionally focus debate on what sort of society Serbians need to stay in, what their actual wants are, and what a simply vitality and social transition ought to appear like.
