"Serbian top court clears path for Rio Tinto’s Jadar lithium project", 11 July 2024

The Serbian Constitutional Court said in a ruling on Thursday that the government’s decision in 2022 to revoke Rio Tinto’s spatial plan permit for the Jadar lithium mine project was unconstitutional.

Belgrade revoked licences for the Australian miner’s $2.4 billion lithium project in western Serbia in January 2022 after massive protests by environmental groups over the proposed mine.

Between 2021 and 2022, Serbian environmentalists collected 30,000 signatures in a petition demanding that parliament enact legislation to halt lithium exploration in the country...

Green activists have repeatedly warned that the mining projects will cause more pollution in Serbia, already one of Europe’s most polluted countries...

If completed, the Jadar project would be Europe’s biggest lithium mine, with a production of 58,000 tonnes of refined battery-grade lithium carbonate per year, enough to power one million electric vehicles and supply 90% of the continent’s current lithium needs...

“Rio Tinto welcomes the decision of the Constitutional Court in Serbia,” the company said in an emailed statement to Reuters