Serbian Academic Community, Protesting Students Demand EC Pass over Jadar Project

(BETAPHOTO/MILAN ILIC)

The representatives of the academic community of Serbia and the student protests plan to deliver demands to the European Union Delegation to Serbia in Belgrade on April 1, asking the European Commission not to include the Jadar Project among its strategic projects in countries outside the EU.

The professor Dmitar Lakusic told a news conference at the Media Center that the letter from the academic community, signed by 2,800, expressed the concerns of the academic community in ten points.

"The academic community is very concerned over the ignoring of scientifically and professionally well-founded warnings about the potentially harmful and irreversible effects the Jadar Project could have on natural riches, the environment and the common good, and over the scientifically proven damaging effects already present, like the contamination of water and land at sites where geological exploration has been conducted for almost two decades," Lakusic said.

He went on to say that the academic community was also concerned over the lack of in-depth assessments of the impact of the Jadar Project on the health of the population due to the complete lack of transparency in the business dealings of the Rio Tinto company in Serbia, the systemic violations of citizens' rights to ownership through the expropriation of private property to benefit the private interests of that company, and the documented violations of Serbian law by the company as it applies to agricultural land protections, waste management, mining and geological exploration, environmental protection and tax regulation.

"The academic community is concerned over the obsequious attitude on the part of the state administration toward the company, resulting in the adoption of illegal decrees favorable to the company but detrimental to the people and the country, over the reasonable suspicion of systemic corruption accompanying the development of the project and indications that the responsible Serbian agencies granted direct approval to the company to submit an application for the Jadar Project in the competition for EU strategic projects despite the fact that the majority of citizens opposes the project," Lakusic said.

If the EC were to insist on the project and give it strategic support, this would greatly damage the EU's credibility, he said, adding that the academic community of Serbia demanded the EC reject the proposal.

The representatives of university student protests read a letter from the students pointing to the detrimental impact of opening a lithium mine.