Vucic: People Will Decide about Lithium

Aleksandar Vucic, Belgrade, June 24 2024 (BETAPHOTO/Milan Obradovic)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on June 24 that he wanted the people of Serbia to decide if a lithium mine would be opened in Serbia and that this was not a decision to be made quickly.

Vucic said a discussion had to be opened on the issue, one governed by arguments, not empty talk like the We Won't Give Jadar Up initiative.

"At this moment we are talking to all the most powerful and most important people from Europe and the world about environmental protection and until the Germans can guarantee that we will have clean rivers, clear mountains, that this waste disposal will be regulated to the world's highest standards -- we won't start anything," he said.

According to him, Serbia has the potential to produce 58,000 tons of lithium carbonate each year, which would boost its gross domestic product by 0.95 percent annually.

In a press release issued on June 24, the University of Belgrade's environmental committee said the Rio Tinto company's Jadar Project to mine lithium near Loznica "has no reasonable rationale from the economic, ecologic, social or moral aspect" and came out against re-launching it.

The University's committee warned that this project involved densely populated areas around Loznica and Valjevo, and that the extraction and processing of the critical mineral resources would lead to severe destruction and pollution of all mediums of the living environment, often with severe consequences for the public health in local communities.