washingtontimes.com

Serbian protesters demand arrests over train station roof collapse that killed 14 people in Serbia

The Washington Times https://www.washingtontimes.com

7–8 minutes

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BELGRADE, Serbia — Angry protesters on Sunday left red handprints at the entrances of government buildings in the Serbian capital to demand the arrest of officials, two days after a concrete canopy collapsed at a railway station, killing 14 people and injuring three.

Police formed a cordon outside the seat of the Ministry of Construction and Infrastructure in central Belgrade as several thousand people called for ranking government ministers, including Prime Minister Milos Vucevic, to immediately step down.

"Arrest, arrest!" chanted the crowd. They shouted at police officers outside the building that they are "guarding murderers" and that "your hands are bloody," while holding banners reading "corruption kills" and "we are all under the canopy!"

"Everywhere you can, leave bloody hands so they know their hands are bloody. In every city in Serbia, everywhere you can," opposition political activist Nikola Ristic said.

The concrete canopy that ran along the front of the railway station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed suddenly on Friday, landing on people who were sitting on benches or passing through the building's entrance. Surveillance camera footage showed the canopy crashing down in seconds.

The dead included a 6-year-old girl. The three injured, who are between 18 and 24 years old, all had to have limbs amputated. They were still in serious condition on Sunday, doctors said.

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PHOTOS: Protesters demand arrests over train station roof collapse that killed 14 people in Serbia

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Funerals for the victims, attended by thousands, have been held in northern Serbia.

The train station has been renovated twice in recent years, and critics of Serbia's populist government attributed the disaster to rampant corruption, lack of transparency and sloppy renovations. The renovation was part of a wider deal with Chinese construction companies.

"Citizens no longer have anything to lose, they are increasingly becoming aware of this," said liberal politician Biljana Stojkovic. "This is grief combined with anger, despair that is turning into rage."

Serbia's populist government has promised a thorough investigation, with prosecutors saying they already have questioned more than two dozen people. But critics believe that justice is unlikely to be served with the populists in firm control of the judicial system and the police.

Officials have insisted that the canopy had not been part of the renovation work, suggesting this was the reason why it collapsed but giving no explanation why this wasn't done.

The Novi Sad railway station was originally built in 1964, while the renovated station was inaugurated by President Aleksandar Vucic and his populist ally, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, over two years ago as a major stopover for a planned fast train line between Belgrade and Budapest.

Copyright © 2024 The Washington Times, LLC.

 

Serbia Is a Showcase of Authoritarian Neoliberalism

Western media coverage often presents Serbia under Aleksandar Vučić as a Russian puppet state. In reality, Vučić has been playing both sides in the new Cold War while applying the same neoliberal policies that hold sway in the West.

 

By Daniel FinnSeptember 9, 2024Z ArticleNo Comments28 Mins Read

 

Source: Jacobin

 

CONTINUED... https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/serbia-is-a-showcase-of-authoritarian-neoliberalism/

 

Lithium & Politics Clash In Serbia

cleantechnica.com

Lithium & Politics Clash In Serbia - CleanTechnica

Steve Hanley

9–11 minutes

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If the future of clean energy depends on lots of batteries to power electric vehicles and store electricity, the world will need lots of lithium. China realized that in the early part of this century and started securing lithium supplies all around the world. That is now having political repercussions, as other nations do not want to be beholden to China for their supply of a critical resource. Some people joked that past wars were fought over oil but future wars would be fought over lithium, but today the joke has turned sour as the political implications of access to lithium are coming into sharper focus.

In Serbia, the collision between lithium and politics is taking place today. Rio Tinto, one of the largest mining companies in the world, has elaborate plans to mine lithium in the Jadar Valley in the western part of that country. But those plans have sparked huge protest rallies across the country by Serbians who are concerned the mining will create enormous environmental problems.

A report by The Hague Center for Strategic Studies estimates that if it the EU is to reach its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, Europe will need 60 times more lithium by that year than what it imported in 2020 from China and elsewhere. Michael Schmidt, a lithium expert at Germany's Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, told the New York Times that Europe might be able to reach its targets without supplies from Serbia, but "the Serbian project is one of the largest, and that is why it is so significant. We need each and every project to reach targets." Chad Blewitt, the head of Rio Tinto's Serbian operations, added that the company planned to invest more than $2.55 billion in the project. "There is no green transition in Europe without this lithium," he said.

The project has been supported by the United States and the European Union, which is in desperate need of lithium to meet its climate goals. But it has generated a wave of public fury in Serbia, where fears that the mine will poison the air and water have set off huge street protests against President Aleksandar Vucic.

Lithium & Politics

The Serbian government gave preliminary approval in 2019, but canceled it before an election in 2022 because it was worried about losing votes during protests. However, Serbia changed its mind against in July because it wants to become a member of the European Union and the EU wants Serbian lithium. Serbia's mining minister, Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic, said mining probably would not start for another two years, but once it did, lithium from the Jadar Valley would allow Serbia to manufacture batteries and electric cars, providing about 20,000 jobs.

Michael Schmidt, a lithium expert at Germany's Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, said Europe might be able to reach its targets without supplies from Serbia. But, he said, "the Serbian project is one of the largest, and that is why it is so significant." He added, "We need each and every project to reach targets." Last month, German chancellor Olaf Scholz and executives from Mercedes Benz, which has big electric vehicle plans, visited Belgrade to push for the Rio Tinto project to get started. Geoffrey Pyatt, US assistant secretary of state for energy resources, cheered the Serbian lithium project on social media last week, calling it "an opportunity to contribute to the green transition at home and abroad."

At a recent protest in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, Angela Rojovic held a sign at a protest against the Rio Tinto lithium project that said, "He sold out Kosovo but is not going to take away our clean water. She said the president had not done enough to defend the interests of Serbs living in mainly ethnic Albanian Kosovo. She also 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 apples and green grass."

International Implications

The proposed mine in Serbia has not only provoked fury among farmers, environmental activists, and ordinary citizens, it also has become a proxy battleground in the West's efforts to extract the country from the orbits of Russia, its traditional ally, and China. For those who view Serbia as a partner for the United States and Europe rather than a Moscow-aligned and authoritarian regional bully, Mr. Vucic's support for Rio Tinto, along with his assent to Serbian-made weapons being sold covertly to Ukraine, is evidence he is serious about disengaging from Russia.

But Russia has strong support among hardline Serb nationalists, and some diplomats and analysts say Moscow has been stirring the unrest over the mine. Mr. Vucic, however, has said Moscow told him that the West is orchestrating the protests because it wants to topple him. "Unfortunately, it has become a political fight, a big political battle," said the mining minister, Djedovic Handanovic.

Among those taking part in recent nationwide demonstrations against Rio Tinto have been leaders of People's Patrol, an ultra-nationalist group aligned with Moscow. Social media accounts known for spreading Russian disinformation have been active in promoting horror stories about the planned lithium mine. Last week, a post on Serbian social media claimed an exploratory hole bored by Rio Tinto was belching radioactive fluid. But leftists and middle-of-the-road pro-Europeans have also joined the protests, chanting opposition to a project that has become a lightning rod for diverse grievances against the government.

In Gornje Nedeljice, a Jadar Valley village that sits atop Europe's biggest known deposit of high-grade lithium, the project has alienated Mr. Vucic's previously stalwart rural base. Dragan Karajcic, the district head for a cluster of small settlements around the proposed mine, said he was a member of Mr. Vucic's governing party but still joined a local protest group hostile to Rio Tinto and the government.

Goran Tomic, a native of Gornje Nedeljice who now lives mostly in Germany, said he understood the need to combat climate change by moving away from gasoline-powered cars, but he was still appalled that his older brother had agreed to sell his house and land to Rio Tinto. "He allowed himself to betray himself for money, and in doing that he betrayed us all," Mr. Tomic said, sitting on his front stoop with his mother, who was also angry but proud that two of her three sons refused to sell to Rio Tinto.

Nebojsa Petkovic, a villager from Gornje Nedeljice and an anti-lithium activist, traveled to Belgrade to help organize a demonstration on Saturday, August 10, that attracted tens of thousands of people. "Let the Germans save the planet," Mr. Petkovic said. "We need to save ourselves." Germany's role has only amplified opposition. Dragan Karajcic, the district head, said he was infuriated by German assurances that the mine would be safe, recalling Nazi atrocities in a nearby town in 1941 that the Germans had promised would be left unhurt. 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 it away to Rio Tinto. No way," he said. "There is a lot of bad blood in these hills."

The Takeaway

If all this sturm unmd drang over lithium in Serbia makes your head hurt, joint the club. In the comfort of our homes far from the fray, we hear that Serbia has high-grade lithium sources and assume they will be developed soon so the price of electric cars will fall. We covered another story about how the quest for lithium is disrupting life for Indigenous people in Argentina. There, the crux of the problem is that the lithium is in an arid location but extracting it requires copious amounts of water. The native people fear the lithium operations will unalterably change their lives and force them to move.

The answer, of course, is to use other minerals — like sodium, potassium, or iron — to make batteries, but unfortunately none of the batteries made with those materials are as good at storing electricity as lithium ion batteries, at least not yet. It seems inconceivable that extracting lithium could create so much opposition when almost no one objects to drilling oil and gas wells anywhere on Earth. As former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill said "All politics is local."

Whether the issue is solar farms, wind farms, or lithium extraction, the opposition is loud and persistent, and yet fossil fuels put all of us at risk. Something's gotta give, somewhere, somehow. That may mean pivoting away from lithium as the foundation of the technologies that will provide us with a world free of carbon and methane emissions, which could be easier to do than untangling the torturous politics of Serbia. If we all need to get along in order to get to an emissions-free world, we are in a lot of trouble.

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Brantner: No "discount" for Serbia regarding the rule of law, Kosovo and BiH due to lithium

europeanwesternbalkans.com

Brantner: No "discount" for Serbia regarding the rule of law, Kosovo and BiH due to lithium - European Western Balkans

by EWB

5–6 minutes

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BERLIN – Franziska Brantner, State Secretary at the German Ministry of the Economy stated that a possible project regarding lithium mining in Serbia would not affect the European integration process of the country, in which the central points are the rule of law and democracy.

"There will be no discount for lithium when it comes to the rule of law, nor in relation to Kosovo or Bosnia and Herzegovina", Brantner, a member of the ruling Greens, told the Berlin daily TAZ.

She added that the Greens had always supported the civil society in Serbia and pointed out that "we managed to achieve that (mining company) Rio Tinto will form a permanent advisory body composed of representatives of civil society".

Franziska Brantner accompanied German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who visited Belgrade on 19 July, when the Memorandum between the EU and Serbia on sustainable raw materials was signed. On this occasion, she also met with representatives of the opposition parties and civil society who are against the lithium mining project in the valley of the Jadar River in the west of Serbia.

About 30,000 people took to the streets of Belgrade on 10 August to protest against the re-announcement of the opening of the lithium mine of the international company Rio Tinto in Serbia. The protest was organised by the Association of Environmental Organisations of Serbia, and speakers said that they would not allow the opening of the mine, due to the concerns that it would pollute water sources and seriously endanger public health. The protest in Belgrade was preceded by mass protests in dozens of Serbian cities.

Brantner also stressed for TAZ that the local population and the opposition rightly demanded that state institutions apply ecological standards.

"At the same time, it is good that European reserves are exploited and processed in a European way. In this way, China's increased influence on important European resources is prevented. I doubt that democracy, the environment and the local population will fare better with a Serbian-Chinese partnership", Franziska Brantner remarked.

She assessed that this was also an opportunity to show the whole world that German and European companies could make a difference and that the exploitation and processing of raw materials could be much more environmentally friendly than it had been so far.

"Rio Tinto has committed itself to respect the EU's environmental legislation, even though it is only partially applied in Serbia. The state control is the responsibility of Serbia. The EU and us will be able to provide expert advise", she said.

Some of Brantner's assessments echoed the recent comments of our portal's interlocutors. They stated for the EWB that the European Union would not stop insisting on improving the rule of law as a key condition for Serbia's membership.

Florian Bieber, a Director of the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, and a coordinator of BiEPAG group, told European Western Balkans that he did not think that the EU would turn a blind eye on the rule of law per se, but rather that it would speak with two voices.

"Hopefully, the next Commissioner for Enlargement will be less compromised than the incumbent and might strengthen the credibility of the Commission in this regard. On the other hand, the lithium-mining deal suggests that the EU has strategic interests that might trump rule of law issues. The signing itself is a testament to it. The project was re-started despite not having any independent institutions evaluating it or any public consultations. In the EU, such a controversial project which was stopped due to citizens' protests could not just restart with so little regard to broader consultation. The fact that the EU supports it, suggests that when it comes to strategic interests, it might look the other way", Florian Bieber said.

In the similar vein, Đorđe Dimitrov, a researcher at the European Policy Centre (CEP) in Belgrade, stated the European Western Balkans that the Memorandum would not speed up Serbia's EU path, but would lead to stronger cooperation on critical raw materials and at one point would certainly result in a strategic partnership between Serbia and the EU.

"However, the key problems concerning Serbia's EU path remain, which are issues regarding the state of democracy, the rule of law and media freedom. It is difficult to expect that the EU member states which do not have an industry that needs lithium will be willing to turn a blind eye to these problems, as officials from Brussels and Germany do", Đorđe Dimitrov stressed.

 

euronews.com

Why is Europe desperate for lithium, and why are Serbians up in arms?

5–6 minutes

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With green groups set to mass for a protest on the streets of Belgrade this weekend over the planned opening of a Lithium mine, what is it about this controversial mineral that has Europeans keen to acquire supplies?

Green groups in Serbia have called what they hope will be a mass protest in Belgrade tomorrow (10 August) against plans to open Europe's largest lithium mining operation in the fertile Jadar valley in the west of the country, while China – the world's third largest producer – is also looking to gain a foothold in the region.

The Serbian mining project has been a source of growing unease since the Anglo-Australian mining conglomerate Rio Tinto first discovered deposits of a new ore it dubbed Jadarite twenty years ago, but tensions came to a head in January 2022 when the government of president Aleksandar Vučić withdrew approval for the mining project's spatial plan.

That decision followed months of protests spurred by fears of the drastic environmental impact of the planned operation that the firm estimates could produce annually some 58,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate (the form in which it is widely traded, equivalent to about 11,000 tonnes of pure lithium metal).

Available estimates suggest a typical 60kWh electric car battery requires about 50kg of the salt (containing 9.4kg of pure lithium) – so that's enough for over a million such vehicles.

With EV's taking up a growing share of annual car sales (14.6% of 10.5m units sold last year in Europe, according to the trade association ACEA), the market value of lithium carbonate is set to increase, although prices seem to have stabilised for now at around $13 per kilo after spiking to five times that in 2022.

Analysts at BMI – part of Fitch Group, better known for credit ratings – forecast in late June a more modest, but still significant, rise to something over $15 this year then $20 in 2025, with rising production largely meeting demand.

But the price on the global market is not the only reason Europe wants to mine the stuff closer to home: it wants to avoid dependence on large external suppliers in an era of increasing geopolitical tension – a fact most sharply reflected by domestic production and recycling targets in the recent Critical Raw Materials (CRM) Act.

By far the largest supplier globally is Australia, with its 88,000 tonnes of lithium almost double that of second placed Chile last year (the EU struck a strategic partnership with the Antipodean mineral giant shortly before that with Serbia).

China produced about 33,000 tonnes last year, but that figure belies its reach on the global markets.

Tianqi, a Chinese company that is one of the top four global lithium miners is heavily invested in production in Australia. In an interview with the South China Morning Post last month, chief executive Frank Ha Chun Shing Said the firm was in talks with potential European partners – including in one unnamed EU country - to expand into battery production.

China's Eve Power started recruiting in March for its new €1bn battery plant in eastern Hungary, while Chinese carmaker BYD announced its first European electric car production plant in the same country at the end of last year (more recently, it announced it would open a similar facility in Turkey).

With recent EU import tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles perhaps a sign of things to come, China firms have a clear incentive to locate production closer to the European market.

Plans for lithium production within the EU are on hold at the moment, with the ambitions of its only significant producer Portugal (380 tonnes last year) to hugely ramp up production also stymied by public opposition and, more recently, confused corruption allegations.

Which brings us back to Serbia, which the US geological survey estimates has reserves of 1.2 million tonnes to Portugal's 270,000. (Germany is sitting on 3.8m tonnes, according to the US government agency, and Czechia 1.3m, raising interesting questions about assumptions regarding public acceptance of lithium mining too close to home.)

On 19 July, the EU inked a memorandum of understanding with Vučić at a CRM summit in Belgrade, with the chancellor of Europe's automotive superpower Germany also in attendance. Just three days earlier, the Serbian government reinstated Rio Tinto's licence, unfreezing the mining project.

Protesters had mobilised even ahead of a supreme court ruling on 11 July that served as the pretext for the government U-turn, and which opponents of the mining plan clearly saw as a foregone conclusion. The EU-Serbia 'strategic partnership on sustainable raw materials, battery value chains and electric vehicles' triggered a fresh round of demonstrations that look set to culminate in what organisers hope will be a show of strength this weekend.

 

telegraf.rs

Serbian Deputy PM Aleksandar Vulin responds to retired US General Clark

Dragica Ranković

~2 minutes

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"Both at the beginning and at the end Aleksandar Vucic will do only what the Serbs ask of him," says Vulin

Photo: Tanjug/Nemanja Jovanovic

Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia Aleksandar Vulin has responded to retired US General Clark to say that President Aleksandar Vucic will do only what the Serbs ask of him, "both at the beginning and at the end."

"Before Wesley Clark starts talking about the violence in the Balkans, he would first have to ask for forgiveness from the families of the murdered Serb children and all those whose lives he changed forever with his crimes. Aleksandar Vucic will do only what is asked of him by the Serbs both at the beginning and at the end, and the Serbs asked for and received peace from their president, but also freedom. I know that Wesley Clark thinks that in 1999 he missed the opportunity to destroy Serbia forever with the bombing, but he will not get another chance," said Vulin.

The deputy PM was reacting to Clark, the NATO Commander in Europe during the NATO bombing of Serbia, who made a statement containing lies about Serbia and President Vucic, whom he characterized as an "Eastern player."

(Telegraf.rs)

 

n1info.rs

Adoption of Jasenovac Resolution by Montenegrin Parliament strains relations with Croatia

N1 Belgrade, DW

5–6 minutes

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Is the adoption of the Jasenovac Resolution by the Montenegrin Parliament a "tribute to the victims" or more about "the interests of the regime in Serbia"? Regardless, the relations between Podgorica and Zagreb have been seriously damaged.

Just two days after unblocking the European integration process, the Montenegrin government angered both Croatia and Brussels by adopting the Jasenovac Resolution. On June 26th in Brussels, Montenegro received a positive IBAR (Report on the fulfilment of temporary benchmarks in Chapters 23 and 24 on the rule of law), and according to its officials, entered the final phase of negotiations to join the European Union. However, despite Prime Minister Milojko Spajic's statement that the EU integration process would never again be subordinated to party or other interests, this is exactly what happened just two days later.

At the proposal of the Parliament Speaker, Andrija Mandic from the New Serbian Democracy, the Montenegrin Parliament adopted the Resolution on Genocide in the Jasenovac, Dachau, and Mauthausen camps. The first reaction from Brussels to this condemnation of World War II genocide was the cancellation of the visit by European Council President Charles Michel, who instead met with Montenegrin President Jakov Milatovic in Brussels. Following this, praise for Montenegro was removed from the official statement of the European Council, which was done at the suggestion of Croatia.

Milica Kovacevic, Program Director of the NGO Center for Democratic Transition from Podgorica, believes that the adoption of the Resolution on genocide in the camps of three European countries – Croatia, Austria, and Germany – is part of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic's agenda, aiming also to relativize the UN Resolution on Srebrenica.

The intention behind adopting the Resolution in the Montenegrin Parliament is illustrated by a statement from one of its proposers, Milan Knezevic, leader of the pro-Serbian Democratic People's Party (DNP). He said on Belgrade's TV Prva that „we should not forget that Germany was the sponsor and Croatia the co-sponsor of the Srebrenica Resolution, so it is fair that they face their own consequences."

Former Montenegrin Minister of European Integration and University of Montenegro professor Gordana Đurovic stated that Montenegro had no need to worsen relations with Croatia. „We all suffer from this resolution, as citizens and as a state. We are now anxious about whether Montenegro will be blocked soon. The question is only when and for how long, not if it will happen. Some things cannot be fixed, but the question is how Montenegro will proceed," Đurovic said.

In addition to sending a protest note to the Montenegrin Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Croatia could declare the parliament members who voted for the Resolution „personae non gratae," a move requested by Most party member Miro Bulj in the Croatian Parliament. Meanwhile, unresolved issues between the two countries, such as the demarcation at Prevlaka and the dispute over the ownership of the „Jadran" ship, could escalate.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Spajic claims that all decisions, including those on Srebrenica and Jasenovac, are made by Montenegro as an independent country that will, as he said, be principled in condemning every crime.

„All resolutions focused on paying tribute to victims, rather than on condemnation, historical circumstances, geopolitics, etc., will be supported. These other topics should be left to historians to objectively investigate the circumstances," Spajic stated – although, prior to the Resolution's adoption, he told the Brussels portal „Politico" that „the resolution definitely harms Montenegro."

Interviewees from DW believe that the damage has already been done and suggest that efforts should now be made to mitigate the consequences.

„This doesn't have to be a tragedy if it stops here and if institutions start doing their jobs. Montenegro must return to the policy that all our neighbours are equally important and detach itself from Aleksandar Vucic's agenda. I think he is very unhappy if someone is better than him, and Montenegro's progress towards the EU doesn't suit him politically," Milica Kovacevcc pointed out.

Gordana Djurovic recalled that Montenegro gained many points in Brussels precisely because of its good neighbourly relations, which have now been damaged for the sake of someone else's interests.

„It would be good to return to a culture of dialogue, to think about our common interest, to calm the situation, and to return to diplomacy and the European agenda," Durovic concluded.