Hungary’s Footprint in Bosnia: Resistance Mounts Against Dodik-Orbán Mine
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“I have lived in this house for 70 years, where should I go from here,?” asks an elderly woman hoeing her garden. She, too, will face eviction if the extraction of raw materials starts here.
We are in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the Majevica Mountains, on the edge of the town of Lopare. On the green hills, sheep bellow, cowbells ring, and everything is quiet and peaceful. It’s hard to imagine the machinery, the destruction of the forest, the removal of hillsides, the leaking of chemicals—all the things that can come with a mine.
The depths of Majevica mountain holds lithium, boron, potassium and other minerals. These are to be mined by the Swiss-based Arcore AG. Despite protests from residents and environmentalists, the leaders of the Republika Srpska are fully behind the project. “I would give them a licence tomorrow,” said Milorad Dodik, president of the Republika Srpska, according to Euronews.
News about Hungary’s possible involvement in the mining project first arose last year. However, the Hungarian government only made a terse reference to the possibility of joint extraction in March of this year. It is still unclear how the planned cooperation would take place, given, among other things, that the mining concession has been applied for by the aforementioned Arcore AG.
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News about Hungary’s possible involvement in the mining project first became public last year, when Viktor Orbán travelled to Sarajevo and Banja Luka for a visit lasting several days. At the time, Radovan Višković, prime minister of the Republika Srpska, told state television RTRS that they were counting on Hungarian partners for the exploitation of raw materials, as was reported by Átlátszó’s regional offshoot in Vajdaság (otherwise known as the province of Vojvodina in Serbia).
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“We are most concerned about water pollution,” says Vladimir Topić of the environmental organization Centar za životnu sredinu. “Like all of Bosnia, this region is very rich in natural water and drinking water sources.”
He also stresses that the project has been completely untransparent from the start, and they have limited information. “All we know is that the geological survey area was 87 square kilometers and that an open-pit mine is probably planned,” he says.
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Open-pit mining cannot be environmentally neutral, as it necessarily involves clearing the forest and dismantling the mountain, as the minerals have to be extracted from the rock. Sulphuric acid would also be used to separate the materials.
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The EU Critical Raw Materials Act was adopted in spring 2024. The objective of the regulation is to ensure that at least 10 percent of the EU’s consumption of raw materials considered critical by the EU is sourced from European mining, in order to reduce dependence on China.
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Vladimir Topić [of the environmental organization Centar za životnu sredinu] articulates cautious critique about the EU, saying that they are only interested in the minerals and investment and do not hear the voice of local communities. “There are many good things coming from the EU and we want to cooperate, but these mines are turning people against the EU,” he says.
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