Environmentalists dispute Rio Tinto’s bid to win strategic status for Jadar lithium project

Serbian collective Marš sa Drine and German nongovernmental organization Green Legal Impact have sent a notice to the European Commission against the recognition of the Jadar lithium mining project in Serbia under the European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Act.

Rio Sava Exploration, the Serbian subsidiary of Rio Tinto, applied to receive the status of a strategic project under the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) for its planned lithium and boron mine in the Jadar river valley, domestic environmentalist network Marš sa Drine said. Together with German NGO Green Legal Impact, it has urged the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) to reject the bid.

“This project should not be granted strategic status based on legal, environmental, social and political concerns. Risks already known include mining activities to surrounding water bodies, repression against environmental defenders, lack of administrative transparency and accountability,” Marš sa Drine said.

The Jadar proposal doesn’t fulfill the criteria for a strategic status as per CRMA, according to the notice, also addressed to the members of the Critical Raw Materials Board.

Jadar project doesn’t qualify for environmental permit, let alone strategic status

The two groups also contested the lack of a legal avenue for NGOs to dispute the matter. In Serbia, the shortcomings of the Jadar proposal are adding strong legal arguments against granting any environmental permit, they pointed out.

Their report indicates environmental, human rights and human health dangers, lack of transparency and inconsistency with good business practice, legal irregularity, impacts on soil, agriculture, water, protected sites and species and the land acquisition process, lack of transparency and intimidation, impact on the social structure of the region, jobs creation, tax revenue, effects on existing business, particularly agriculture, irregularities in terms of permitting, timelines and governance issues as well as violations of Serbian law.

“The European Union’s mineral acquisitions are deeply intertwined with concerns of neocolonial practices. As the EU seeks to secure a greener economy, its dependence on these minerals places it in a position of significant power over foreign nations rich in such resources, where extraction projects are often conducted by global giants like Rio Tinto. This reliance reveals a broader pattern of exploitative dynamics in the EU’s relationship with resource-rich nations, particularly in regions where governance and environmental protections may be weak,” Marš sa Drine wrote.

It is part of the Association of Environmental Organizations of Serbia (SEOS).

The future is not green if it’s only green for you, Bojana Novaković tells EU

In countries like Serbia, the extraction of minerals could devastate local ecosystems – damaging soil, water, and biodiversity and creating political and social instability – raising questions about the EU’s commitment to human rights and sustainable practices abroad, said Bojana Novaković from the Serbian network.

The EU’s push for ethical sourcing is compromised when it turns a blind eye to these environmental and social impacts, in her view.

“The lack of transparency, legal irregularities, and deficient feasibility studies in these projects further expose the EU’s complicity in undermining the very governance and regulatory frameworks it claims to champion, perpetuating a system of unequal resource extraction that benefits parts of Europe at the expense of other nations. The future is not green if it’s only green for you, Novaković stressed.

The EU’s push for ethical sourcing is compromised when it turns a blind eye to these environmental and social impacts, says Bojana Novaković from Serbia-based Marš sa Drine network

Of note, Balkan Green Energy News has published and is regularly updating a chronological overview of the key events in the development of the Jadar project since 2001, when Rio Tinto arrived in Serbia. For more than three years now, Rio Tinto and Serbia’s government, which champions the proposal, have met fierce resistance from the local population and environmentalists. The movement includes people from other areas in the country and neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina and sites for the exploration of lithium and various minerals, as well as various mining operations.

Marš sa Drine and other organizations mobilized citizens who filed more than 10,000 complaints against an approval by the government that paves the way for the Anglo-Australian mining giant to submit an environmental impact assessment study.