Petkovic: EC says Serbian Government refuses to reveal who signed approval for Rio Tinto and Jadar project

“Through independent members of the European Parliament, we asked the EC who signed the approval on behalf of Serbia for Rio Tinto to apply for the Jadar project to be declared strategic for the EU, and received a response that the Serbian Government is preventing them from giving us this information. Our sources close to EC circles claim this was done personally by Serbia’s president at the insistence of (EC President) Ursula von der Leyen that he stop hiding behind others,” Nebojsa Petkovic wrote in a post on his X account.

He also attached a document showing that the question to the EC was posed by Adrian Naughton, a parliamentarian from Belgium, and that the response on behalf of the EC was signed by Kerstin Jorna, EC Director-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs.

Among other things, the document states:

“Since the documentation requested originates from a third party, Serbia, this originator of the documentation has been consulted. We consulted Serbia and it opposed disclosure of the above-mentioned document on the grounds that the letter was ‘confidential communication between the Government of the Republic of Serbia and the European Commission’ and that it ‘would undermine the protection of public interest as regards international relations and would undermine the privacy and integrity of the Government of the Republic of Serbia.’”