Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2667 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 19 November 2025, the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), in a coordinated action with Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, designated 5 individuals and 7 companies linked to two Russia-based "bulletproof hosting" (BPH) providers, Media Land and Aeza Group, under Executive Order 13694. Media Land and its subsidiaries (Media Land Technology, Data Center Kirishi, ML Cloud) supplied server infrastructure to ransomware groups including LockBit, BlackSuit and Play. The designations also targeted three companies Aeza Group used to evade its July 2025 OFAC designation and rebrand its infrastructure: Hypercore Ltd. (United Kingdom), Smart Digital Ideas DOO (Serbia), and Datavice MCHJ (Uzbekistan). All designated persons' U.S.-nexus assets are blocked and U.S. persons are prohibited from transacting with them.

On 25 March 2025 the European Commission adopted the first list of 47 Strategic Projects inside the EU under Article 7 of the Critical Raw Materials Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1252), followed on 4 June 2025 by 13 Strategic Projects located in third countries — 60 designations in total. The 47 EU projects span 13 Member States and 14 strategic raw materials, with an expected EUR 22.5bn capital-investment envelope; the 13 third-country projects require a further EUR 5.5bn. Designation triggers fast-track permitting (max 27 months for extraction, 15 months for processing/recycling), preferential access to EU/EIB/EBRD finance, and Member State priority status, operationalising the CRMA's 2030 benchmarks (≥10% extraction, ≥40% processing, ≥25% recycling, ≤65% single-country dependence).

The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published in the Federal Register (89 FR 84472–84474, FR Doc 2024-24524) three general licenses issued under the Western Balkans Stabilization Regulations (31 CFR Part 588): GL 3A, GL 4, and GL 5. All three were originally issued on 18 June 2024 concurrent with OFAC's expansion of Republika Srpska / Dodik-network designations; the 23 October 2024 Federal Register notice formalises them per the Administrative Procedure Act notice requirements. GL 3A (which superseded GL 3 of 16 November 2023) authorises transactions involving certain WBSR-blocked entities that are ordinarily incident and necessary to the exportation or re-exportation of agricultural commodities, medicine, medical devices, replacement parts and components, software updates, or activities involving medical prevention, diagnosis, treatment, or clinical trials. GL 4 authorises wind-down transactions with entities blocked on 18 June 2024 through a defined cutoff. GL 5 authorises transactions ordinarily incident and necessary to the manufacture, distribution, operation, installation, or maintenance/repair of drinking-water pumps manufactured or distributed by the WBSR-blocked Bosnian Serb entity Kaldera Company EL PGP d.o.o. (and 50%-or-more-owned subsidiaries), preserving municipal water supply continuity.

On 24 September 2024 the European Commission issued its first-ever final decision under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2022/2560), conditionally approving (Case FS.100011) the acquisition of PPF Telecom Group B.V. by Emirates Telecommunications Group Company PJSC (e&, majority-owned by the Emirates Investment Authority, Abu Dhabi). The Commission found that e& received prohibited foreign subsidies — principally an unlimited state guarantee via the EIA and preferential financing instruments — that risked post-transaction competitive distortion within the EU's five-country PPF footprint (Czechia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia; 10+ million subscribers). Conditions imposed require e& to remove the unlimited state guarantee, prohibit financing PPF's EU operations from EIA or e& group treasury, and mandate notification of future EU acquisitions above the FSR thresholds. The non-confidential version of the decision was published 4 April 2025.

The European Commission and the Republic of Serbia signed a non-legally-binding Memorandum of Understanding on 19 July 2024 at the Serbian Critical Raw Materials Summit in Belgrade, establishing a Strategic Partnership covering sustainable raw materials, battery value chains and electric vehicles. The MoU commits both parties to developing integrated upstream-to-downstream value chains, sharing knowledge on sustainable extraction and processing, applying high ESG standards, mobilising EU financial instruments (EIB, EBRD, Western Balkans Investment Framework, Global Gateway), and promoting skills development in battery and raw-materials sectors. Serbia's strategic importance derives from its hosting of the Jadar Valley lithium-borate deposit (Rio Tinto), estimated to contain approximately 10% of world lithium reserves and among the largest lithium deposits in Europe.

The Government of Serbia adopted on 16 July 2024 a Decree reinstating the Spatial Plan of the Special Purpose Area (SPSPA) for the exploitation and processing of jadarite mineral — the legal instrument underpinning Rio Tinto's Jadar project in the Mačva District (Loznica municipality). The reinstatement followed the Constitutional Court of Serbia's ruling of 11 July 2024, which declared unconstitutional the Government's January 2022 decree that had revoked the original 2020 SPSPA (Sl. glasnik RS 26/2020) under political pressure. The Jadar deposit is the world's largest known jadarite (Li-borosilicate) resource (~158 Mt at 1.8% Li₂O, 13% B₂O₃), projected to supply ~17% of forecast 2030 European LCE demand, and was subsequently designated an EU CRMA Strategic Project.

The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published in the Federal Register (89 FR 16400, FR Doc 2024-04856) two general licenses issued under the Western Balkans Stabilization Regulations (31 CFR Part 588): GL 2 and GL 3. Both were originally issued on 16 November 2023 concurrent with OFAC's initial round of Republika Srpska / Dodik-network designations; the 7 March 2024 Federal Register notice formalises them per the Administrative Procedure Act notice requirements. GL 2 authorises wind-down transactions with newly blocked WBSR entities through 15 March 2024. GL 3 authorises exports and re-exports of agricultural commodities, medicine, medical devices, replacement parts, and services for medical prevention and treatment to WBSR-blocked persons; GL 3 was subsequently superseded by GL 3A on 18 June 2024.

OFAC adopted a final rule (FR Doc 2023-08870) correcting a typographical error in the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (31 CFR § 560.528, "insure" → "ensure") and two cross-reference errors in the Western Balkans Stabilization Regulations (31 CFR §§ 588.307 and 588.405). Most substantively, the rule properly incorporates the nongovernmental organizations general license (GL 1) into the WBSR at § 588.512 — that GL was originally issued as a standalone web action on 21 December 2022 but failed to codify due to an error in the amendatory instructions. No new prohibitions or designations are created; the rule formalises existing authorisations and corrects drafting errors.

OFAC reissued the Western Balkans Stabilization Regulations (31 CFR Part 588) in their entirety on 29 September 2022, updating the framework that implements Executive Orders 13219 (2001), 13304 (2003), and 14033 (2021). The reissuance added three new definitions, expanded interpretive guidance, incorporated three new general licenses, and explicitly operationalised E.O. 14033's expanded emergency — which extended the Western Balkans sanctions perimeter to cover corruption and anti-democratic destabilisation, not just armed-conflict threats. The regulations apply to persons in or linked to the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Albania.

The Government of Serbia adopted, on 20 January 2022, the "Uredba o prestanku važenja Uredbe o utvrđivanju Prostornog plana područja posebne namene za realizaciju projekta eksploatacije i prerade minerala jadarita 'Jadar'" — a decree terminating the 2020 Spatial Plan of the Special Purpose Area (SPSPA, Sl. glasnik RS 26/2020) that had underpinned Rio Tinto's Jadar lithium-borate project in the Mačva District. Published in Sl. glasnik RS br. 8/2022. Five days later, on 25 January 2022, the Ministry of Environmental Protection separately annulled its decision approving the project's environmental impact assessment study. Together the two acts cancelled all administrative permits, decisions and resolutions tied to the Jadar project, following weeks of nationwide protests against the mine.

On 26 July 2018 the Serbian government agreed to sell a 63% stake in RTB Bor — the state-owned copper mining complex in eastern Serbia — to Zijin Mining Group (HKG:2899) for approximately USD 350 million plus a committed investment of USD 1.26 billion over five years. The transaction closed on 24 September 2018 after Chinese MOFCOM and Serbian government approvals. RTB Bor operates the Bor open-pit copper mine and the Čukaru Peki underground mine. Under Zijin's management, combined annual copper output reached 296,000 tonnes in 2025, making Zijin the second-largest copper producer in Europe after KGHM (Poland). The complex also produces significant gold as a by-product. The acquisition was facilitated by the China-Serbia comprehensive strategic partnership and BRI connectivity framework. The Serbian government accepted Chinese investment at a discount to assessed asset value in exchange for committed capital expenditure in a region with limited Western private-sector appetite for brownfield copper. EU membership negotiations and EU state-aid rules complicated alternative European financing structures. Zijin financed the acquisition through a combination of corporate balance sheet and China Development Bank-syndicated loans. The Čukaru Peki mine, which was not included in the initial RTB Bor asset base, received a separate Zijin investment commitment exceeding USD 800 million.