A legal analysis published by the non-governmental organization Transport & Environment has found that the European Union’s directive on mining waste disposal is flawed. At the same time, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre has reported that Serbia currently has 709 contaminated sites that are not monitored by any authority.
Europe aims to open new mines across the continent in the coming years to meet the target of producing ten percent of its own critical raw materials. However, the legal analysis by the European NGO Transport & Environment (T&E) has highlighted significant shortcomings in the regulations governing the disposal of mining waste.
The analysis points out that Europe, a continent where mining has been in decline for decades, now has outdated regulations that are, in some areas, less stringent than those in countries like Brazil or China.
Do EU Standards for Mining Waste Even Exist?
European environmental standards are often cited as one of the main guarantees that the extraction of critical raw materials, like lithium, will not endanger the environment and human health, both within the European Union and elsewhere, according to Balkan Green Energy News.
After signing a Memorandum of Understanding for strategic partnership in sustainable raw materials between Serbia and the EU, European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič stated that the EU has “the most comprehensive and strictest regulatory framework for sustainable development and environmental protection in the world.”
However, T&E commissioned a legal analysis of the EU Extractive Waste Directive from 2006, conducted by the Dutch environmental law firm Horchner Advocaten.
According to T&E, one clear finding of the legal analysis is that there is a significant risk of fragmentation in the implementation of the directive, with many key provisions left unclear and subject to the discretion of individual member states.
For example, it is unclear who is responsible in the event of accidents or damage and how strong or regular prevention and monitoring planning should be, the NGO emphasized.
Finally, T&E has called for a revision of the directive and offered its recommendations.
Serbia Has 709 Contaminated Sites
The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) has reported that “the mining industry is a major source of land pollution in Western Balkan countries.”
For Serbia, the report identified 709 contaminated sites covering an area of 3,203.7 square kilometers. It also noted that Serbia does not conduct any regular soil monitoring, and the existence of reports on polluted hotspots is the result of pilot projects involving foreign donors.
Dejan Milošević from the organization “Prvi, prvi na skali” previously told “Vreme” that the danger lies in the public’s lack of awareness or insufficient information about the state of the environment, which is directly threatened by mining activities worldwide, including in Serbia.
“If citizens lack information, they also lack a system of (self-)defense, they don’t know what to watch out for or what to pay attention to in their surroundings. In this case, the source of information must be inspections,” Milošević says.
Lack of Serious Monitoring in All Areas
Milošević pointed out that the country’s problem is the absence of various registries and a serious monitoring system—publicly accessible—from local polluters to the subjects of all national inspections.
He emphasized that citizens need warnings when something happens in areas occupied by “mining operations.”
“Do we know how the effects of mining companies’ operations impact us: the presence of suspended PM10 and PM2.5 particles in the air, the impact of ubiquitous dust, the transport of their products, especially dangerous substances they use, hazardous waste they dispose of, tailings and landfills they create, the penetration of substances into food, water, and soil, as well as the tremors they cause daily,” Milošević says.
Citizens were not timely or fully informed, for example, in 2021 about the results of 119 regular inspections, 110 extraordinary inspections, and 22 official advisory visits by only two mining and two geological inspectors, regarding whether the environment was endangered.
“I mention this year because it was then that the Basic Court banned the activities of the Euro Lithium Balkan company in the Valjevo area, when the victims of the exploration were left without water, and there were also cases of poisoning,” he explained.
Milošević also pointed out that such a small number of inspectors cannot monitor the situation at 216 high-risk sites and oversee 328 sites, nor closely follow the operations of hundreds of companies.
As an example of good practice, he mentioned the United States, where the EPA—Environmental Protection Agency—has over 2,500 inspectors.
Source: VREME
