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28 August 2025
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Lithium, Law, and the Limits of EU Sustainability

In July 2024, the European Commission entered into a strategic partnership on critical raw materials with Serbia by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on sustainable raw materials and battery value chains. Three days before signing the MoU, the Serbian government had decided to renew the spatial plan for the realization of the “Jadar” project, which includes the exploitation of the mineral Jadarite in western Serbia. These two events have signaled the readiness of the Serbian regime to allow lithium mining in western Serbia and the EU’s commitment to exploit a source of critical raw material (CRM) in its neighborhood, particularly in the Western Balkans. Continue reading >>
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18 January 2024

Unpacking the Critical Raw Materials Act

The recently adopted Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) is framed as a milestone for the EU Green Industrial Plan and the twin green and digital transitions. In the context of emerging green industrial policies and the resurgence of the state as an economic actor, the Act encapsulates the EU’s attempt to instrumentalise markets for public objectives. Yet, the bid to generate tailored and specific market outcomes is undercut by the Act’s primary strategy of adjusting risks and returns for ultimately volatile, profit-driven private initiative. At the same time, the Act’s focus on domestic green growth, even if read charitably, remains myopic to the global challenge of climate change and perpetuates existing patterns of core-periphery extractivism. Continue reading >>
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