KORS: Jadar Project Illegally Introduced to Spatial Plan of Serbia, Agreement with Zijin Needs to Be Revised

The Coalition for Sustainable Mining of Serbia (KORS) has announced that it will notify international institutions about how the Jadar Project of the company Rio Sava was illegally introduced to the Spatial Plan of Serbia.

– We plan to notify international institutions about how the Jadar Project was introduced illegally and point to the fact that the Government of Serbia is violating the right of public participation – the coalition’s legal adviser Pera Markovic said at the press conference organized by KORS.

He explained that the Spatial Plan of Serbia had not envisaged the opening of a lithium mine near Loznica and that the Government had instead adopted it by the Decree on the Spatial Plan of the Special Purpose Area.

– The introduction of the Jadar Project to the Spatial Plan of Serbia violates the right of public participation, because the Aarhus Convention envisages the inclusion of the public in the discussion about strategic projects from the beginning – Markovic said.

The president of KORS, Zvezdan Kalmar, said that the state had given public authorizations to a private owner and that the coalition demanded that the non-constitutional Law on Mining be repealed.

Kalmar also estimated that the state of Serbia should not have accepted the Chinese company Zijin as the partner at RTB Bor, “because it is a state company with a poor environmental track record, given that it has been thrown out of Peru and Papua New Guinea”.

He said that KORS requested a revision of the agreement on privatization with Zijin, because “mining activities are carried out without a special purpose plan and the Cerovo 2 mine is being opened without a study of the environmental impact”.

Koalicija za održivo rudarstvo u Srbiji

Rio Sava Exploration d.o.o. Beograd

Rio Tinto Exploration Dunav d.o.o. Beograd

Vlada Republike Srbije

Narodna skupština Republike Srbije

JP Putevi Srbije Beograd

Serbia Zijin Copper doo Bor

Coalition for Sustainable Mining of Serbia

KORS

Rio Sava

Rio Tinto

Government of Serbia

RTB Bor

Zijin

Pera Marković

Zvezdan Kalmar

Jadar

Cerovo 2

Spatial Plan of Serbia

lithium

lithium mine

Decree on the Spatial Plan of the Special Purpose Area

Aarhus Convention

mining

Law on Mining