The EU announced thirteen raw project materials in an attempt to reduce its dependency on Chinese minerals and Russian oil and gas.
They span from West to East, including one in Serbia, the Rio Tinto project.
If the EU wants to change its image in Serbia, which has traditionally been anti-EU and especially anti-NATO (following the 2000 bombings), it should think twice about promoting lithium projects.
The question of lithium is not new to Serbia, which already sparked outrage last year when a bill was proposed to ban lithium and coal mining in the region, which was rejected by Aleksandar Vučić’s government, which holds a majority in the Serbian Parliament.
Farmers and locals of Loznica, located in West Serbia at the border with Bosnia & Herzegovina, took their anger to the streets. Road blockades were set up, in the hopes of voiding the project.
Farmers are not the only ones to oppose the proposal. Environmental groups have regularly voiced their discontent with lithium projects in the region, citing environmental concerns.
On the other hand, both the Serbian and the government are interested in pursuing such projects, due to the economical benefits. Rio Tinto claimed Serbia could satisfy 90 per cent of Europe’s lithium demands, while Vučić’s Serbia needs an urgent industry boost to revitalize a faltering economy.
If the EU does end up pursuing the projects, or continue pushing for a deal with Rio Tinto, it will mark a point of no-return in Serbian relationship with the EU.
While true that Vučić will welcome a deal with open hands, it will worsen the opinion of many Serbian voters on the EU for the coming decades. Although economically attractive, accepting such a deal would ignore the demands of the Serbian people.
The end of 2024 and the first months of this year have been the most chaotic in Serbia’s modern history with student protests expanding to every city. They demand the immediate resignation of Vučić’s government, who they blame for the fatal train station collapse in Novi Sad of last year.
Since then, Serbian students have organized themselves and blockaded roads and universities. They have shown a unique sense of courage, in spite of limited foreign assistance. Not only did March 15th reunite more than 1 million Serbs in the streets, but the movement did not stop there.
Vučić’s response had been as cowardly as he has always been: his government used a sound cannon, deemed illegal by most legislation.
To date, Serbia’s President and his party have failed to address the issue. There were armed counter-protestors, while alleged paid actors vandalized Belgrade’s botanical garden by setting up tents to counter-block the student protest.
Serbian students did not stop there. A few hundred forced discussions by cycling from Belgrade to Strasbourg, where they intended to speak with European officials in the European Parliament.
They were welcomed in Hungary, Germany, and France as heroes. Soon after, another wave of students ran all the way to Brussels instead, demanding inaction from a rather weak EU.
While it can be argued there is no clarity as to what the EU should do, there is no doubt that silence is the wrong approach. It is not that the EU tried to react, or that it took the wrong step. The problem is that the EU has not acted or responded at all.
Marta Kos, the EU Commissioner for Enlargement, should have been the first to condemn. Although she did criticize the chaos caused by the protests, she never showed any resistance to Vučić’s brutalities, or what caused several altercations between student and government-aligned forces.
Even worse, other European institutions like the European Council, have already shaken hands with Vučić.
European Council President Antonio Costa flew to Belgrade to meet Serbian President Vučić, and failed to address the topic of the protests. Instead, he praised Serbia for “its pro-EU approach”, something disputed widely within the country.
It should be remembered that Vučić openly supported Russian President Vladimir Putin. During the protests, Vučić has demonstrated his disregard for democratic processes by opposing any sort of process, and police violence was unfortunately not uncommon by authorities.
The EU is walking on thin ice, and cannot afford to make further mistakes. The Serbian general opinion on the West is barely positive as it is, and supporting a project which would endanger the environment and drive a wedge between the agricultural industry and the government would only dig the grave deeper.
It is often forgotten that Serbia remains a candidate for EU membership, despite multiple obstacles. It would be naive to believe the EU should keep its current approach to Serbia and the Western Balkans, where it has regularly appeared to have double standards.
With Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, the EU has demonstrated it lacked unity. It cannot afford to lose further potential candidates, especially in a region as crucial to geopolitics as the Western Balkans.
If the EU can read the room, it should oppose the lithium projects at all costs, and realize its realization is only supported by Vučić’s regime as a smokescreen for economic development, at the cost of destroying Serbia’s natural ecosystems.
Featured image via Dario Valjan / Shutterstock.
