President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić said Rio Tinto has to offer “the cleanest solution” with “the highest standards” to be allowed to resume its lithium mining and processing project in Jadar.

Two years after formally abolishing Rio Tinto’s lithium exploitation and processing project, Serbia is still keeping the door open. The authorities blocked the activities after nationwide protests, the largest in two decades. However, top officials said several times in the meantime that it was a mistake and accused the local population and activists of working for the interests of foreign powers, which they never identified.

The Anglo-Australian mining giant never gave up and disputed a range of the government’s decisions at the Administrative Court. President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić told reporters at the ongoing annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos that he spoke with the company’s representatives.

Vučić never hid what he thought about Jadar project

He added he never hid what he thought about the project, claiming it would equal 20% of all foreign direct investment over a five-year period, Politika reported. “We had a difficult conversation and I said they have to offer the cleanest solution, one that would be satisfactory for our people. The highest standards in the world for the nature and the people that would work,” Vučić stated.

The lowest net salary would be EUR 1,000 per month, in his words. The president revealed that he discussed the issue of protests “everywhere in the world” with his collocutors, but also that he asked them not to take measures to protect their interests.

According to Vučić, the question is whether the company would sue Serbia. “We are going in front of the people, openly discussing everything, and not a priori. To ask whether our people can be safe, if our rivers and mountains can be clean,” he stressed and added that the next government, which should take office by May, would deal with the matter.