Politico: Is Serbia turning into an EU mining colony?

The European Union placed a strategic bet on Serbia’s lithium reserves to fuel its ambitious shift to electric vehicles. What it ended up getting in return were dirty politics and an environmental backlash so severe it is poisoning the Balkan nation’s relations with Brussels and blighting its aspirations to join the bloc, Politico said.

Serbia’s Jadar lithium deposit is estimated to contain enough of the soft, white metal to power 1 million EVs and cater to up to 25 percent of Europe’s demand, placing the continent’s largest lithium deposit at the heart of EU efforts to secure supplies of the critical raw materials needed to transition away from fossil fuels. No wonder, then, that a project to mine the deposit, developed by global giant Rio Tinto, stands to secure crucial backing from Brussels under the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), which aims to reduce the bloc’s heavy reliance on China for essential resources.

Yet intense resistance to the project from Serbs, who worry about environmental damage and accuse their political leaders of corruption and cronyism, threatens to undermine support for EU membership that runs at around 40 percent.
If the EU decides to support Jadar, it will signal that the bloc prioritizes its economic interests over fundamental values, and will also “have dramatic consequences on Serbia and the region,” said Aleksandar Matkovic, a Belgrade-based researcher who has organized protests against the mining project. The protests have become tied up in a broader wave of anti-government unrest in Serbia, with tensions escalating further after a documentary, produced by a metallurgist who supports the Rio Tinto project, controversially labeled those who oppose it as Russian agents, reported Politico.

That claim has been repeated on the pages of the Wall Street Journal, while activists have also faced allegations of acting as agents for the EU and China.

“We cannot be agents of three different superpowers,” said Matkovic, who works at the Institute for Economic Sciences in Belgrade.

On March 25, Industry Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné unveiled 47 strategic raw materials projects under the CRMA but unexpectedly didn’t include non-EU projects — leading many to wonder if this was because of the controversy surrounding Rio Tinto’s Jadar lithium mine. The Commission declined to comment on whether concerns around Jadar had affected the decision to delay the announcement, but emphasized the broader ambitions around the EU’s strategic raw materials partnership with Serbia.

That partnership “does in no way change the EU’s approach to the fundamentals of the EU accession process,” a spokesperson said. “What

it] can do is to bring investments in raw materials, batteries, and e-mobility that will boost economic development and

the] green and digital transition and create new job opportunities.”

Serbia “needs to deliver on EU reforms, in particular to take decisive steps towards media freedom, the fight against corruption, and … electoral reform,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote in a social media post.

All eyes are now on whether the Jadar mine will appear on the EU’s next list of CRMA projects. On March 25, Séjourné noted he “will be presenting the selected projects in the coming weeks,” adding that those outside the EU “will not disappear from the map.”

If it receives EU backing, the project would gain better access to funding opportunities — though it wouldn’t enjoy the same benefits as EU-based projects, such as fast-tracked permits and direct financial support.

European lawmaker Hildegaard Bentele believes that Jadar is “crucial for Serbia, it’s crucial for the EU, it’s crucial for the whole automotive sector.” Bentele, who represents Germany’s Christian Democrats, serves as the European Parliament’s representative on an advisory panel that reviews CRMA strategic projects with the European Commission.

But for many in Serbia, the Jadar project now symbolizes the EU’s alignment with a mining giant at the expense of public concerns — prioritizing Germany’s industrial interests and the bloc’s race to close the EV gap with a dominant China, reported Politico.

Meanwhile, popular mistrust has led many locals to believe that only the politicians will benefit.

Politico noted that Serbia’s score is the lowest within the Western Balkans in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.

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