“New York Times”: What is behind the lithium project in Serbia

But houses are actually victims of a current battle charged with geopoliticalism: where Europe can get the materials it needs to make electric car batteries and break its dependence on sources like China.

The houses, in the Valley of Jadari in western Serbia, were purchased years ago by the mineral giant Rio Tinto, who planned to destroy them and open up lithium mines, an essential element for electric car batteries. Its plans were mired in loud opposition, and the company left their property destroyed.

The project is supported by the United States and the European Union, which desperately needs lithium to meet its climate goals. But this has generated a wave of public anger in Serbia, where fears that the mine will poison air and water has triggered major street protests against President Aleksandar Vucic.

Europe has a lot of lithium and more than 20 mining projects for the mineral at different stages of development. But no one has started producing lithium on the battery scale. The huge project in Serbia was aimed at filling this gap.

There is no green transition in Europe without this lithium”, said Chad Blewitt, head of the Serbian operations of Rio Tinto, adding that the company plans to invest more than $2.55 billion in the project.

The Serbian government gave preliminary approval in 2019, but, worried about losing votes during the protests against Rio Tinto before the 2022 elections, cancelled it.

Under pressure from the European Union, in which Serbia aspires to membership, the government changed its mind in July, allowing Rio Tinto to revive the project. The British-Russian multinational says it has already invested about $600m to buy land, open 500 research pits, conduct studies and make donations to the local football club and other entities.

Serbia's mining minister, Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic, said the mines would probably not start for two more years, but after that happens, litium from the Jadranka Valley would allow Serbia to produce batteries and electric cars, opening about 20,000 jobs.

A report by The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies estimates that if it achieves its carbon neutrality target by 2050, Europe will need 60 times as much lithium as it imported in 2020 from China and elsewhere.

Michael Schmidt, a lithium expert at Germany's Federal Genocines and Natural Resources Institute, said Europe could be able to achieve its goals without supplies from Serbia. But, he said, Serbia's “project is one of the largest and that's why it's so significant”.

The success of projects ultimately depends on the price of lithium on the global market and whether companies like Rio Tinto can recover their investments. The price has fallen over the past 18 months, as Chinese demand has weakened and its production has increased.

The proposed mine in Serbia has not only provoked anger among farmers, environmental activists and ordinary citizens, but has also turned into a middle battle field in Western efforts to bring the country out of Russia's orbit, its traditional ally and China.

Geoffrey R. Pyatt, US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources, last week hailed the Serbian lithium project in social media as “an opportunity to contribute to the green transition in and out of the country”.

For those who view Serbia as a partner for the United States and Europe and not as a regional molester associated with Moscow and authoritarianly, Mr. Vucic's support for Rio Tinto, along with his consent for the secret sale of Serbian weapons to Ukraine, is serious evidence about the secession from Russia.

Russia has strong support among hardline Serbian nationalists and some diplomats, and analysts say Moscow has sparked riots over the mine. Mr. Vucic, however, has said Moscow told him the West is orchestrating the protests because it wants to bring it down.

Unfortunately, it has become a political struggle, a major political battle”, said the mining minister, Mrs. Djedovic Handanovich.

Among those attending the recent nationwide demonstrations against Rio Tintos have been leaders of the People's Patrol, an ultranationalist group linked to Moscow. The accounts of social media known for the spread of Russian deninforms have been active in promoting horror stories about the planned lithium mine.

But the leftist and pro-European leaders have also joined protests, cheering against a project that has turned into a flash for various complaints against the government.

“He sold Kosovo, but will not remove the clean water”, written on a sign denouncing Mr. Vucic, held by Angela Rojovic, 25, at a recent protest in Belgrade. She said the president had not done enough to protect the interests of Serbs living mainly in ethnic Albanian Kosovo.

And she said Mr. Vucic was sacrificing Serbia's environment to serve Europe's climate goals. “I don't need green cars,” she said. “I need green apple and green grass. ”

In Gornje Nedeljice, a Jadari Valley village located on top of the largest known deposit in Europe of high-quality lithium, the project has adopted Mr Vucic's stable rural base.

Dragan Karajcic, head of the district for a small group of settlements around the proposed mine, said he was a member of Mr. Vucic's ruling party, but still joined a local protest group hostile to Rio Tinto and the government.

“We are not trying to overthrow the government,” he said. The government is doing this on its own. ”

Eager to open the mines, Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the management of Mercedes Benz, who has large electrical vehicle plans, visited Belgrade last month to applaud the Rio Tinto project. Germany's role, however, has only reinforced opposition.

Mr. Karajcic, the district head, said he was indignant by the German guarantees that the mine would be safe, remembering Nazi atrocities in a nearby town in 1941 that the Germans had promised would be left intact.

He said his great grandfather fought nearby against Austrian troops during World War I. He fought to keep our land and now I'm supposed to give Rio Tintos. No way”, he said. “There's a lot of bad blood in these hills. ”