“An official trade partnership to source critical raw materials from Serbia is looming with negotiations at the final stages of legal wrangling,” Maros Šefčovič told Euronews.

The trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and Serbia has been in progress since the signing of a letter of intent last September. This agreement aimed to strengthen and broaden cooperation on critical raw materials and electric vehicle value chains, serving as a clear indication of the mutual willingness of the EU executive and Belgrade to collaborate, provided that environmental and social acceptance challenges in the potential mining region were resolved.

“I hope that in a short period of time we will be able to finalize the text of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU),” Šefčovič conveyed to Euronews.

“All I can say at this stage is that there is a positive development. There were some legal issues in the past, which are now being discussed between the company and the government,” he continued.

Lithium and its compounds are used, among other things, in the production of glass and heat-resistant ceramics, durable alloys used in aviation, lithium cells, and lithium-ion batteries.

Geologists estimate that the Jadar Valley in Western Siberia may contain Europe’s largest reserves of the raw materials. Researchers from the Economist Intelligence Unit noted that “lithium mining could be incredibly profitable for Serbia.”

The country holds 1.3% of the world’s known reserves of the metal. The estimated value of Serbian lithium is €4 billion, and its extraction within a decade could provide hundreds of jobs and a steady stream of income for the government.