Serbia terminates Spatial Plan decree for Rio Tinto Jadar lithium-borate project (predecessor to 2024 reinstatement)

Mechanism

Following sustained 2021-22 nationwide protests over environmental concerns, the Serbian government reversed course on the Jadar project by terminating the SPSPA decree that had legally defined the project's special-purpose planning area, and had the Ministry of Environmental Protection separately annul the EIA approval. Without the spatial plan, no permits tied to the project could lawfully be issued or relied on. The move was widely read as a response to protest pressure ahead of the April 2022 general election rather than a change in the underlying resource assessment — foreshadowed by the eventual 2024 Constitutional Court ruling that the government had exceeded its procedural authority in how the termination was adopted (Article 3 non-compliance), and the subsequent reinstatement.

Downstream implications

• Establishes the missing predecessor in the register's Jadar lineage: 2020

SPSPA adoption → 2022 termination (this action) → 2024 Constitutional Court ruling + reinstatement.

• The project resumed its permitting track only after the 2024 reinstatement;

this 2022-2024 window is the relevant "project paused" period for any timeline analysis of Rio Tinto's Jadar capex schedule.

Open questions

• Whether the Ministry of Environmental Protection's 25 Jan 2022 EIA annulment

was ever separately gazetted with its own citation, or only referenced administratively — not confirmed from sources reachable this tick.