Minister says added demands by environmental organizations are political

FOTO TANJUG/ STRAHINJA ACIMOVIC

Serbia’s Mining and Energy Minister Zorana Mihajlovic said on Friday that all the demands of the environmental organizations protesting against Rio Tinto had been met, adding that and additional demands are political.

The Serbian government revoked its decree on a spatial plan on Thursday, stopping all Rio Tinto activities linked to the opening of a lithium mine in the Jadar area of western Serbia.

Mihajlovic said the government decision was taken at the demand of the public and added that every added demand has to do with politics, not ecology.

“We took the decision to revoke the decree. I think it’s important for the public to know that all the demands were met but it’s a fact that many people are using this for purely political purposes. The government has shown that it favors dialogue, that we hear what the people say all the time, that the people in the Jadar area don’t want Rio Tinto and we annulled all the decisions taken since 2004,” the minister told reporters.

She said that she understands the additional demands but added that ecology was being misused in the election campaign. “Attempts to misuse ecology prove that they don’t care about the public or the environment or economic development. Our country is rich in critical mineral resources. The attested reserves are worth more than 250 billion Euro and we are saying that nothing can be done unless the highest environmental protection standards are met. Everything else is a political battle which boils down to stopping development. We can’t stop because that would mean going backwards,” the minister said.