Same target, same distance.
After almost three years, numerous marches and blockades, a large protest against lithium mining is scheduled for Saturday at 19 pm in Belgrade at Terazije, under the slogan "there will be no mines".
The central meeting was organized after the expiration of the 40-day deadline given by the Alliance of Environmental Organizations of Serbia (SEOS) to the Government at a protest in Loznica, at the end of June, to pass a law banning the mining of lithium and boron in the country.
"The only request that will be addressed to the authorities is a permanent ban on research and exploitation of lithium in the entire territory of Serbia.
"At that meeting, we will announce the next steps to prevent the opening of lithium mines throughout Serbia." He said Zlatko Kokanović, president of the "Ne damo Jadar" association from Gornji Nedeljice, to the Beta agency on the eve of the Belgrade protest.
He should be one of the speakers at the protest, along with actress Svetlana Bojković, Dragana Đorđević, scientific associate of the Institute of Chemistry and Ljiljana Bralović, activist from SEOS.
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All citizens of Serbia are invited "regardless of political and ideological orientation", "but without party affiliation".
There is no official information about the program, but some of the activists are announced walking and blockades of certain parts of the city.
The rally in Belgrade is the last in a series of demonstrations organized in more than 30 cities and municipalities of Serbia, among others, in Šabac, Valjevo, Novi Sad, Niš and Smederevo.
What started the new protests?
The series of protests was initiated by the recent decision of the Government of Serbia to approve the continuation of the "Jadar" project of the British-Australian company Rio Tinto on the construction of a lithium mine in the valley of this river, in the west of the country, which was stopped at the beginning of 2022.
Then the official Belgrade, under the pressure of mass protests, halted the project worth 2,4 billion dollars by decree.
"We put an end to Rio Tinto," she stated On January 20, 2022, the then Prime Minister of Serbia, Ana Brnabić, after the government's decision to cancel the Regulation on the determination of the planning document from 2020, which overlooked the construction of a lithium mine - the Spatial Plan for the "Jadar" project.
According to the Prime Minister, "thereby the administrative acts related to the company Rio Tinto, i.e. the daughter company Rio Sava Exploration, all permits and all decisions were annulled".
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In July 2024, the Constitutional Court ruled that the authorities in Serbia had thus exceeded their powers, and in the middle of the month the government passed a new decree with the intention of returning the legal order "to the state before the adoption of the decree that was declared unconstitutional".
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić announced at the beginning of August that there will be no lithium mining until the state receives all the guarantees.
A few days later, a team of experts was presented who will deal with the issue of harm to human health if a lithium mine is opened.
The team includes Health Minister Zlatibor Lončar, as well as several professors of medicine and experts from other fields, such as toxicology, RTS reported.
In 2004, Rio Tinto geologists established the existence of a previously unknown mineral deposit in Western Serbia, naming it jadarite, after the river.
Jadarite contains lithium, the main component of batteries in mobile phones and electric vehicles, for which demand is constantly increasing.
In mid-July, Belgrade was visited by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who with Vučić attended the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the EU and Serbia on strategic partnership on sustainable raw materials, battery production chains and electric vehicles.
Šolc is there stated that the Jadar project is "good for Serbia" and that it brings "good economic development prospects for the entire region".
It's Vucic said that he "trusts the word" of the German chancellor and that the project "will bring at least six billion euros of new investments", while some activists and opponents of lithium mining assessed that "the government has signed a capitulation".
The president of Serbia is in mid-June stated that, "if we fulfill everything", the mine could be opened in 2028, and then at the end of July he announced the possibility of calling a referendum on lithium mining for the end of next year.
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