Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is preparing to give Rio Tinto the green light to develop Europe’s largest lithium mine two years after Belgrade called off the project, the Financial Times reports.
Vucic told the newspaper that “new guarantees” from the global mining giant and the European Union looked set to address Serbia’s concerns over whether necessary environmental standards would be met at the Jadar site in the west of the country.
Rio Tinto did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.
Regarded as a critical material by the EU and the United States, lithium is used in batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and mobile devices.
“If we deliver on everything, (the mine) might be open in 2028,” Vucic told the newspaper in an interview published on Sunday, adding that the mine was projected to produce 58,000 tons of lithium per year which would be “enough for 17 per cent of EV production in Europe – approximately 1.1 million cars”.
In 2022, Belgrade revoked licences for Rio’s $US2.4 billion ($A3.6 billion) Jadar project after massive environmental protests.
If completed, the project could supply 90 per cent of Europe’s current lithium needs and help to make the company a leading lithium producer.
In 2021 and 2022 Serbian environmentalists collected 30,000 signatures in a petition demanding that parliament enact legislation to halt lithium exploration in the country.