The renewed movement against destructive lithium mining in Serbia can defeat the government and Rio Tinto but strategic direction and focus are needed, argues Pavle Ilić

High summer is generally not a period of mass political activity, and Serbia is no exception to this universal rule. However, on 10 August this year, a streak of mass demonstrations in several towns culminated in a gathering of around 50,000 people in one of Belgrade’s central squares. A number of this magnitude would suggest a high level of popular anger in any circumstance; in the context of exhausting heat and summer vacations, it seems unreal.

The event that set the movement in motion might seem underwhelming. On 11 July, Serbia’s constitutional court ruled that the government had overstepped its powers when it revoked the permission for the construction of a lithium mine. Technically, the government scrapped a local development plan that designated a large area in the Jadar river valley for lithium extraction by Rio Tinto, an Anglo-Australian mining corporation with a track record of leaving ecological and social devastation in its wake. The plan was originally withdrawn in late winter 2022, thanks to pressure from an impressive mass movement. The government’s decision was surely aided by the fact that the demonstrations, which relied on the tactic of road blockades, broke out just a couple of months before the parliamentary election, threatening to undermine the ruling Progressive Party’s usually unshakeable electoral base.

However, as some activists have been warning ever since, this retreat was far from final. Instead, the regime decided to wait for a more favourable moment formally to continue with the project. This much was fairly obvious from the statements of some of its most senior officials, including the president Aleksandar Vučić and the then prime minister Ana Brnabić, who have continuously declared that giving up on lithium mining ‘would be a grave mistake’.

Shifting fortunes

There was little time to celebrate the victory against the government and Rio Tinto, as the war in Ukraine broke out mere weeks after the scrapping of the development plan. This, in tandem with the election campaign, shifted the focus of national politics away from ecological issues, and allowed the regime to play to its geopolitical forte. In doing so, it turned Serbia into one of very few places in Europe where the belligerents and their allies could make behind-the-scenes deals, such as circumventing Western sanctions on Russian gas. This was not without its benefits for the country’s economy. Consequently, the government’s power was bolstered, allowing it to come unscathed out of both a severe inflation and another mass movement in late spring of 2023 (initiated by a gruesome and unprecedented school shooting).

Outside Serbia, the geopolitical changes resulted in the escalation of the new cold war between the US and China and their respective blocks. Lithium, a key material in the production of batteries for a wide range of goods, is a precious resource on the economic plane of this conflict. Its application in the electric vehicle (EV) industry is of utmost importance for the West, as the US and the EU are desperately trying to catch up and undercut China’s dominance on the world EV market.

In this context, the EU sees Serbia’s lithium deposits as a strategic investment of the first order. Opening lithium extraction and refinement facilities in Serbia, which borders four EU member countries, would drastically shorten supply chains and temper its reliance on international competitors (at present, the EU imports most of its raw lithium from Chile, while most of its refined lithium comes from China). If mining lithium closer to home were the goal, however, a question arises: why is Serbia a better location for lithium exploitation and refinement than Germany, whose lithium deposits are by far the largest in Europe and which is home to some of the leading automobile manufacturers on the continent?

A clean home for Europe’s dirty technologies

The hypocrisy of the EU has once again been laid bare. While it tries hard to present itself as the ‘greenest’ economic bloc in the world, its prominent officials are going out of their way publicly to support the exploitation of lithium in Serbia, despite the fact that lithium extraction and refinement carry significant, scientifically proven, and well-documented environmental risks. In addition to this, the Jadar valley mine would be one of the first lithium extraction projects in the world situated on populated, agricultural land (as opposed to deserts), which also happens to be the source of drinking water for a large part of Serbia’s and neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina’s populations.

Going back to Germany, it would be very interesting to note that German politicians have been among the most vehement proponents of lithium exploitation in Serbia. They include the likes of the Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz and the Greens’ Euro MP Viola von Cramon-Taubadel. This should really come as no surprise, as Germany has historically exploited Balkan labour and natural resources. Its ruling class regards the region as Germany’s extended backyard and has been steadily expanding German influence into the Balkans following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and Yugoslavia.

Consequently, the alignment around lithium of Vučić’s centre-right regime with that of Germany’s Red-Yellow-Green coalition, threw Serbia’s liberal political forces, especially their green wing, into a conundrum. Since their main political line revolves around claims that Vučić is too vacillating in his commitment to Serbia joining the EU, and since some of them were actually in power when the first agreements with Rio Tinto were signed, the liberal opposition will find it very hard to push to the front of the movement and assume a leading role. Thus, just like in 2021/2022, liberal politicians and parties have been noticeably absent from the demonstrations. Furthermore, certain among them publicly implied that they are not opposed to the exploitation of lithium by foreign companies per se, while others still tried to spread conspiracy theories about Vučić himself forcing lithium into the forefront in order to distract from other issues.

Lessons learnt…

Since we are witnessing the second round of a fight that broke out two and a half years ago, and was halted after a defeat for the regime, it might be worth looking at the similarities and the differences between the states of the movement at these two points in time.

As mentioned, the absence of liberal parties, which regularly try to dominate and dictate the rhetoric and methods of mass movements in Serbia, especially in its largest cities, is visible today as it was in the 2021/2022 demonstrations. In both instances, the protests have been called by a loose coalition of ideologically diverse ecological organisations and initiatives which have lacked organisational capacity and resources to orient and channel the huge spontaneous outpouring of popular wrath.

A miscalculation on the part of the regime in 2021 led to pro-regime thugs and the police attacking the demonstrators, which only exacerbated the fury of the general population. Fearful about the effects of a full-blown conflagration on its electoral prospects, the regime was forced to retreat before the question of political and strategic priorities could open up within the movement and lead to its splintering or a creation of a relatively clear political identity.

This time around, the government seems significantly more resolute, and they are careful not to repeat their past errors. Their preferred response to mass movements boils down to allowing the demonstrations to take place with minimal policing and relying on a lack of clear strategic and tactical planning on the part of the organisers to wear the protesters out. However, this tactic seems to be off the table in this instance. Firstly, the issue seems to be too politically sensitive, with a potential to cleave into the Progressive Party’s broad ruling coalition and social base. Secondly, the pressure from the EU to enable lithium exploitation in Serbia is enormous. Thirdly, it has already suffered one defeat at the hands of this movement, whose leadership is not as disinclined to turn to disruptive tactics as the liberal opposition is. Thus, the regime’s response has included repression and intimidation, albeit in a much more controlled and directed fashion than in 2021/2022.

Dozens of activists have been interrogated by the police since the movement restarted, with dozens more receiving threats, having their phones and computers seized and flats searched, or being attacked by the tabloid media. Apart from activists, members of the scientific community critical of Rio Tinto have been targeted. This includes Aleksandar Matković, a research associate at the Institute of Economic Sciences in Belgrade and a coauthor of the Jadar Declaration, who received a string of anonymous death threats. This dangerous approach could efficiently neutralise the leadership of the movement without causing mass outrage that open police violence would. It is therefore of utmost importance that the movement responds to state repression by intensifying mobilisation efforts and protecting its prominent members.

…and those still to be

That the approach of targeting individuals, rather than the masses is as effective as it appears to be points to a central weakness of the political forces at the heart of the movement. The ecological organisations are desperately clinging to the mass opposition to Rio Tinto as the lowest common denominator within the movement, and are offering very little in terms of a positive vision or an alternative path for the future of the country’s energy issues. Additionally, the tactic of mass blockades cannot be conducted in the semi-secretive way that they adopted for the Belgrade demonstration. In effect, the crowd was notified from the central stage on the square that there would be a march to the Gazela bridge, which was routinely blocked during the protests in 2021/2022. The crowd had already thinned out by the time it reached the bridge (after 10pm on a Saturday) and it was only there that it was revealed that the plan included all-night blockades of two train stations. Finally, by morning, tens of thousands of demonstrators on the Terazije square turned into a couple of dozen activists at both locations, enabling the police to clear them with ease.

The organisers then announced that they would suspend the demonstrations in Belgrade for a couple of weeks, and shift their tactics to rolling short-term blockades. While both of these seem like rational tactical decisions, this struggle will test the existing organisational capacities of the ecological activist coalition. Furthermore, their implicit distrust of the masses, whom they see simply as bodies on the ground and not as a source of strategic and tactical innovation and strength, is a handicap that they will have to overcome if they are not to lead the movement into a dead end.

Can the left offer a way forward?

The role that a tiny radical left can play in a movement of this scale is limited, but far from insignificant. The issue of lithium extraction is inextricably linked to what a ‘green transition’ will mean in a semi-peripheral country like Serbia. This opens up the political questions of energy sustainability and autonomy in a society dominated by foreign debt and neoliberal policies. For this reason, revolutionaries in Marks21 have decided to call for the formation of an anti-investor bloc which aims to intervene into the movement. The demands of the bloc include:

• the immediate publication of all documents and contracts between the Serbian government and Rio Tinto,
• the urgent suspension of all extraction and exploration permits for foreign mining companies, and
• the creation of a national energy strategy in which the state-owned Elektroprivreda Srbije would play a central role.

In order to achieve these goals and strengthen the movement against repression, we are calling for the creation of plenums, which would allow the movement actively to discuss and adopt strategy and tactics. We are also pushing for a clear and direct involvement of trade unions in the struggle against Rio Tinto. Despite the fact that ‘political strikes’ are illegal under Serbian law, the working class in Serbia needs to realise just how powerful it can be and that industrial action is a far more efficient tool for bending governments to our will than most road blockades can ever hope to be. Only when workers organise around the political question of energy sustainability and ‘green transition’ will the ecological movement develop from a very annoying nuisance for the regime into an intimidating and powerful force. Finally, we believe that international connections and cooperation must be established with similar initiatives in the Balkans, as environmental destruction and foreign capital care little for ethnic and state borders.

We are firm in our belief that only a politics of resistance to the capitalist and imperialist exploitation of our region can offer a way forward and mobilise popular forces. In this way, we can force the servile government to back down again.