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....
