Aleksandar Vucic and Olaf Scholz (Photo: The General Secretariat of the President of the Republic/Dimitrije Goll)
On July 19 in Belgrade, in the presence of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, representatives of Serbia and of the European Union signed a memorandum of understanding regarding a strategic partnership in the area of sustainable raw materials, battery value chains and electric vehicles.
The signing of the MOU took place during the day’s Summit on Serbia’s Critical Raw Materials, attended not only by Vucic and Scholz but also by EU Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic – in charge of European Green Deal – and the representatives of European financial institutions, car battery manufacturers and the company Rio Tinto, which is supposed to conduct the mining of lithium in Loznica’s Jadar River Valley.
At the Summit, Vucic claimed that the later project would not happen without ensuring the full protection of human lives and the environment.
The president also made it clear he knows Serbia’s wider public will not support the lithium extraction, yet insisted the EU has guaranteed that the Jadar Project will be implemented according to the highest standards.
Scholz, he said, also promised Germany would work to ensure that Serbia has a larger lithium production value chain, which will yield billions in investments and huge progress for the entire country, particularly Western Serbia.
Mining lithium represents a great hope for Serbia, Vucic concluded, and added that the country will not miss this opportunity.
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