EU-Serbia lithium mining deal – dirty politics?

Has the German government learned its lesson from North Steam 2?

Apparently it has.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz paid a surprise visit to Belgrade just a few weeks ago to sign a major lithium mining deal with Serbian President Aleksander Vucic, in a bid to reduce the EU’s dependency on China.

China produced the most electric cars in 2023, and some experts are worried that the cheap cost of these vehicles may impact the German economy, which is largely dependent on the automobile industry.

Germany has ambitions to build 15 million electric cars by 2030, to keep up with EU climate change promises.

Widespread protests are planned across Serbia this weekend, with more than half of the Serbian population rejecting plans to mine in the Jadar Valley.

Mass protests against lithium mining brought much of Belgrade and other parts of Serbia to a standstill in 2021, before the plans to open the Rio Tinto mine were withdrawn. However, Serbia’s Constitutional Court overturned this decision earlier this month, and the Serbian government has now signed the deal with the EU in July.

Rio Tinto hopes to begin extracting lithium by 2028.

These plans are not only controversial because of the environmental costs, but also due to the politics. Lithium can be found in large quantities in other countries, including Austria, Czech and Portugal, but the EU wants to keep the dirty work outside of its own backyard.