Government Unwilling to Amend Law over Project Jadar

Serbian Parliament speaker Ana Brnabic (BETAPHOTO/MILAN OBRADOVIC)

It is unnecessary to alter the Law on Mining and Geological Surveys over a single project, such as the Jadar Valley lithium mine, and to permanently ban the exploration and excavation of lithium and boron in Serbia, Parliament Speaker and ruling Serbian Progressive Party vice president Ana Brnabic said on Oct. 10.

Speaking for Pink TV, Brnabic explained that the company Rio Tinto will conduct an environmental impact study for the Jadar project over the course of at least 22 months, followed by a public presentation of the findings and their review by Serbia’s top experts.

The parliament speaker reiterated that “the sky’s the limit” regarding how high a settlement Rio Tinto could receive through arbitration should the company be “run out” of Serbia without a study proving that Project Jadar could potentially negatively impact the environment.

“If we do that, then Serbia may have to pay billions of euros in an international arbitration settlement, while [Rio Tinto] remains the owner of the land [in the Jadar valley], because it bought the land of its own accord,” Brnabic concluded.