Brussels – At a time when the European Union is seeking to become increasingly less dependent on China and the United States for the procurement of critical raw materials and rare earth elements, the issue of mining in the Western Balkans – a region aspiring to join the Union soon – has moved to the forefront of the EU policy and industrial agenda.
In countries such as Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia, however, major challenges – from environmental degradation and weak regulatory enforcement to limited transparency in concession agreements and insufficient public participation in decision-making – risk undermining the EU’s credibility in upholding its own standards and values.
However, there may be a way forward. “The EU should link the enlargement policy with the Critical Raw Materials Act when it comes to the state of the rule of law and authoritarian rule,” argue Marko Kmezić, Senior Researcher at the Centre for South-East European Studies at the University of Graz, and Vedran Džihić, Senior Researcher at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs (oiip), in an interview with The New Union Post.
As the rule of law and environmental standards are already part of the accession conditionality, bringing them within the framework of the EU’s Regulation aimed at securing a reliable, sustainable, and diversified supply of critical raw materials would be “beneficial” for both partners. While the EU “would ultimately get what it needs” from the Western Balkans, this approach “would anchor Serbia and the broader region more firmly within the EU through a more stable rule of law and democratic framework,” the two analysts explain, drawing from their policy brief on countering authoritarian extractivism for the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG).
One of the main conclusions of the policy brief is the need for the EU to promote the green transition and secure a European critical raw materials supply chain through a different approach, without necessarily renouncing mining projects that local communities perceive as environmentally destructive and democratically opaque. “If business continues as usual, then it would risk undermining the EU’s own democratic standards in the region and allowing this authoritarian extraction to continue.”
Between stabilocracy and the EU’s negligence
With confirmed or potential deposits of critical raw materials across the Western Balkans, the EU’s commitment to closing the gaps in democracy and the rule of law “is called into question,” says Kmezić. “This does not happen on an impetus, but as an intended consequence” of pushing the extraction and processing of these materials needed for the digital and green transitions, which “has come to the forefront of the EU’s interest.”
The two researchers gathered evidence that the EU is neglecting “some very problematic aspects” of the current regulation in the field of mining. As Kmezić notes, “it does not give too much attention to nitty-gritty details,” which include ownership, the establishment of regulatory bodies, and the protection of the environment. However, all these aspects are part of the EU acquis and are assessed during the enlargement process. Taking this into account, it becomes “very obvious” that the EU is overlooking some of its own criteria “for the sake of speeding up the process,” he continues.
Such an approach carries implicit consequences for the countries hosting mining projects, which can be summarised under the term ‘stabilocracy’. This means that the EU “is keeping a blind eye to undemocratic practices for the internal interests of either EU member states or the EU itself.” This is now the case for security and geopolitical issues, “including the pressing need to pursue the goal of the green transition” in order to catch up with China and the US in terms of both the extraction and processing of critical raw materials that are essential for European industry.
The central question is not simply whether extraction occurs, but whether institutions are strong enough to “ensure that revenues are transparent, communities have genuine influence over decisions, environmental harms are controlled, and benefits are distributed fairly,” Džihić notes. Without those safeguards, resource projects often enrich governments and companies while leaving local populations with “most of the social and environmental costs.”
This is why it is “particularly worrisome” that the European Commission relies, in particular, on state institutions to ensure governance safeguards surrounding extraction, “completely neglecting its own findings” pointing to weak state institutions and government connections with organised crime across the region.
On the contrary, at the core of the EU’s interests should lie social impact assessments, independent monitoring and accountability, the protection of human rights and labour rights, fair benefit-sharing mechanisms, and transparent revenue management. Moreover, “meaningful and transparent community participation” from the earliest stages of project planning is a prerequisite for ensuring benefits for local communities.
Mining and protests in Western Balkans
Particularly in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the EU’s green transition “unfolds in weak, fragmented and authoritarian systems and is not able to ensure either environmental protection, the rule of law, or democratic accountability,” Kmezić argues, referring to all the elements that form part of the conditionality enshrined in the EU accession process.
Indirectly, the EU gives “too many concessions” to the authoritarians in the region – Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is a clear example in this regard – and, as a consequence, it endangers the credibility of the very accession conditionality on which the enlargement process is based.
This makes it even more obvious why leaders like Vučić are so interested in these mining projects, despite the fact that the economic gains for Serbia and local communities would be limited. “It is not about the economy, but rather a sort of trade-off” that the authoritarians are using to reinforce their stabilocratic approach and to see “fewer voices raised about their way of governing.”
Meanwhile, the rise of environmental protest movements around projects such as Rio Tinto’s Jadar lithium mine has become intertwined with the broader democratic mobilisation of Serbian students over the last year and a half, with both also pointing to the EU’s responsibility and double standards.
As Kmezić explains, “no one in Serbia is against mining per se.” What these protests are all about is “the lack of environmental protection and negligence towards the health of citizens,” and not only in the Jadar Valley. One underrated example is copper mining in Bor, where the Chinese company Zijin has a de facto extraterritorial area within Serbia, completely overriding all national, international, and European standards. “This is the fear about what the lack of political accountability and the rule of law would do not only to the soil but also to the people who actually live there.”
These protests are neither anti-mining nor anti-EU, but they represent “an outcry for democratic accountability, for the rule of law and for the establishment of democratic institutions and regulatory bodies,” the researcher at the Centre for South-East European Studies makes clear. Yet, it becomes “frustrating and unfortunate” when Brussels sides with the Serbian government “because of its own internal interests.” Even the most ardent EU enthusiasts are “very much disappointed” – and this is one of the worst consequences of this whole story: “The EU is completely losing its credibility in the Western Balkans.”
