Of course, Olaf Šolc knows very well who Aleksandar Vučić is - a Serbian autocrat who shamelessly cheats in elections, disregards the laws, controls the services, the police, the prosecution, the army and, if necessary, incites anti-Western and especially anti-German sentiment in Serbia. . The chancellor of Germany also knows that the political system here - when viewed from the outside - resembles a Monty Python mockery or a caricature in the spirit of Benny Hill (which suits the German sense of humor more), and not a functional parliamentary democracy. When lived from within, it is more like a tragedy.
It is quite clear to the Government in Berlin that the President of Serbia does not contribute to regional peace and stability, but, on the contrary, digs up corpses from wars wherever he can, of course Serbian ones, and buries Croatian, Bosniak, Albanian corpses and covers them with his version of patriotism. They see there at the Brandenburg Gate that Vučić is causing trouble wherever he appears and whatever he says, like that Roman whom Julius Caesar in the episode of Asterix and Obelix Seeds of discord takes him out of the dungeon where he is chained and with his mouth gagged (because as soon as he speaks, arguments and fights start around him), and whom the legendary René Gossini baptized Tullius Destructivus.
And yet, here is German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Belgrade for a photo-shoot with the President of Serbia, although according to protocol Prime Minister Miloš Vučević should be there, constitutionally the most powerful political figure in the country. Another proof for Šolc - if any more are needed - that Serbia is subordinated to the personality cult of one man.
It doesn't matter. A short conversation behind closed doors, an appointment for photographers and cameramen, a joint press conference, a smile, a handshake, a few sentences about how important lithium is for Europe and Vučić for Serbia and, sooner or later, Good bye.
But why did Solz come to Belgrade in the first place? The memorandum of understanding on the strategic partnership between Serbia and the European Union in the field of sustainable raw materials, value chains of batteries and electric vehicles was signed on behalf of the European Union by the Vice President of the European Commission Maroš Šefčovič, in charge of the "European Green Deal", and on behalf of Serbia by the Minister of Energy Dubravka Đedović Handanović. And Solac was hardly interested in the international summit on critical raw materials, which was held at the same time in the Palace of Serbia.
photo: apDEMOCRACY IS GOOD, LITHIUM IS EVEN BETTER: Analena Berbock, Green Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany
FORE GAME
Only at first glance it seemed strange that the red chancellor is at the head of a coalition government in which there are also green ones, meaning the most vocal fighters for the preservation of the environment, human rights and democracy - thus, European values - headed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Analena Berbok, came "at the feet of the Serbian autocrat", as some slightly left-leaning German newspapers wrote. At a second glance, everything is quite clear to us here: the German auto industry needs a huge amount of batteries, for batteries an even larger amount of lithium is needed, which, for now, is 100% imported to Europe, and it is available in Serbia, in the Jadra valley, and to spare.
This raw material is so important for the German economy that Scholz allowed himself to be targeted by the progressive propaganda machine whose goal is to break the resistance to lithium mining among the population, because 55 percent of Serbian citizens oppose the "Jadar" project, according to a recent survey by the New Serbian Political Thought.
It is nothing new that the government in Berlin meets the needs of Aleksandar Vučić, even if they do not exactly overlap with German foreign and security policy. He was the political darling of Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She was pleased with his courtship and eulogies, Vučić was then learning German, swearing by Max Weber and the Protestant work ethic, taking Germans constantly in his mouth as an example that lazy Serbs should follow. Merkel thought that she would succeed in bringing the promising Serbian leader to the safe political ground of the European conservative parties, and he convinced her that he just needed a little more time to break the resistance in Serbia, where the people hate everything in the West and want to die for Kosovo, according to principle: what will I do, I wouldn't, but I have to eliminate Stalinists with Stalinist methods, that is, nationalists with nationalist politics and prevent them from spreading.
That is why in Berlin, under the rule of Angela Merkel, Vučić's gradual establishment of autocracy was viewed through all ten fingers. And then a red-green coalition government was established, with the liberals as the third partner, and Olaf Scholz came to its head. The second wind, the cold one from the north, began to blow from the German capital, Vučić was no longer a respected partner but an uncouth autocrat who is friends with Putin and Orban, whom they tolerate until further notice because that's what will happen when the Serbian opposition is barren and they have no who else to cooperate with.
However, it was still thought that, despite everything, he was not being touched too much because the promise remained that he would sort out the Serbs in Kosovo and pacify Milorad Dodik. Rightfully so. There are fewer and fewer Serbs in Kosovo. They lost almost everything that tied them to the state of Serbia - dinar, license plates, documents, representatives in the Kosovo police, the judiciary, mayors... In the last phase, since that stupid armed action by Milan Radoičić at the end of September last year in the village of Banjska, nobody in Belgrade He did not point a finger at Kurti's rounding up of Kosovo's independence.
Due to his domestic rating, Vučić continued to hold Serbian assemblies and kitsch patriotic performances with Milorad Dodik and to play a defiant fighter for Serbianism and freedom in the world, offering, draped in the Serbian tricolor, a tragicomic resistance to the UN Resolution on Srebrenica initiated, among other things, at the initiative of Germany , which, in an already full bucket of disagreements, Berlin did not like at all.
And then the "lithium agreement" project between Serbia, Germany and the European Union accelerated like lightning. From the field of regional security, the game has moved to the far more important field of global economy and European security.
EUROPEAN GREEN DEAL
There were 2006 electric cars in Germany in 1931, and by April 2024, that number had grown to 1457496, according to German online statistics platform Statista. The goal of the German government is to issue 2030 million driving licenses for electric cars in the country by 15, despite criticism that it is not realistic. The German Bundestag adopted the Law on Environmental Protection, according to which the emission of harmful gases should be reduced by 65 percent compared to 1990, and the transition to electric cars is crucial in this context.
The "European Green Deal", presented by the European Commission in December 2019, represents a concept according to which Europe should become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 - to no longer emit harmful gases and to implement Paris Climate Agreement 2015 This ambitious program is estimated at €1,8 trillion – one third should be funded from the development plan NextGenerationEU and from the EU budget, and the Commission hopes that state and private investors will also get involved, writes the portal of the German public service MDR.
The "Green Deal" applies to all sectors of the economy, and automobile traffic emits a fifth of harmful gases in the EU, writes MDR. Since 1990, that share has increased by 11 percent, and in 2020, 90 percent of the energy used in automobile traffic was obtained from fossil fuels. Internal combustion engines should therefore be completely abolished: in February 2023, the European Parliament passed a law according to which no new passenger vehicles that produce harmful gases will be sold from 2035 - 340 MPs voted for, 279 against.
Cars with internal combustion engines should replace electric vehicles, and in order to achieve the set climate goals, at least 2030 million electric vehicles should be on the streets of the EU by 30. According to Eurostat, in 2021 there were barely two million electric vehicles in the EU, of which 600000 were in Germany.
photo: Rade Prelić / Tanjug...
EUROPE'S DEPENDENCE ON LITHIUM IMPORTS
All this is accompanied by an extreme increase in demand for necessary raw materials, primarily nickel, manganese, graphite, cobalt and - lithium. According to the United States Geological Survey, the global demand for lithium has increased from 40000 tons in 2015 to 134000 tons in 2022.
According to research by the KU Leuven Institute from Belgium, the demand for lithium should literally explode by 2050. For the EU alone, they predict that demand will jump from 2020 to 2050 tons per year between 23000 and 861000. That's why experts talk about "lithium fever", because lithium could soon be more important than oil and gas.
Only: Europe is 100 percent dependent on the import of lithium, which in the future could turn out to be a very critical raw material, according to Michael Schmidt from the German Raw Materials Agency (DERA), according to whose study the main players in lithium mining are Australia, China, Chile and Argentina. The captain of this team is China, where 60 percent of this raw material is processed.
In this sense, the EU, as part of the "Green Deal", presented the European Law on Critical Raw Materials (CRMA) in March 2023, on the basis of which the exploitation of critical raw materials within the EU, including lithium, should be strengthened and stopped. complete dependence on the world market, especially in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the growth of China into a world power whose foreign, security and economic policy represents competition to the European Union.
SCHOLC IN BELGRADE
And here we return to Soltz's visit to Serbia, which, according to research by the US Geological Institute, ranks eleventh in the world and third in Europe, behind the Czech Republic and Germany, with an estimated 1,2 million tons of lithium. There are also lithium deposits in Europe in Spain, Portugal, Finland, France, England, and Ireland.
As far as the Jadra valley is concerned, German Wirschaftswoche (Business Week) estimates that from 2028, about 50000 tons of lithium carbonate could be mined there annually, enough for batteries for a million vehicles. It is a big question whether lithium mining could be started anywhere in Germany before that deadline, although Scholz spoke in Belgrade about the obligation of European countries to use their capacities of critical raw materials, including lithium. Schmidt from DERA believes that it is realistic that Europe will cover between 2030 and 25 percent of its lithium needs by 40 from its mines.
In light of all that, it is not surprising that Scholz came to Belgrade to smile with Vučić as a German guarantor that everything will be fine with the environment in the Jadra valley when Rio Tinto starts mining lithium. It wasn't a big price.
The President of Serbia can thus again count on the political support of Berlin, because he is, of course, someone who understands European problems and wants to help solve them, and the representatives of the opposition turn out to be some kind of Indians who oppose the arrival of the iron horse, i.e. the progress of their country and Europe.
