ANALYSIS: Scholz ready to embrace autocrats for lithium deal

Olaf Scholz's visit to Belgrade on Friday shows that the German chancellor is ready to embrace autocrats when it comes to raw materials, writes Austria's Der Standard.

There are several things that are concerning about the lithium deal with Aleksandar Vučić. First, the Serbian public has been deliberately misled. In January 2022, then-Prime Minister Ana Brnabić cancelled the lithium project after environmental protests. But this was obviously just a bluff to keep things moving behind the scenes.

Now Brnabić claims that foreign intelligence services, which allegedly wanted to harm Serbia, were to blame for the developments in 2022. The regime's claim in Russia that foreign agents are evil is also well known. In this sense, Serbian politicians and their media repeatedly wage anti-German campaigns. But Berlin does not care about that.

Because the European automotive industry, which wants to switch to electric cars, urgently needs alkaline lithium. They also want to become more independent from China, which has raw material reserves. That is why they are apparently ready to respond to the wishes of the autocratic regime in Serbia.

Finally, there are large lithium deposits in the west of the country.

The work has a price

But this work has a price that the citizens of Serbia will pay. Because Germany is by far the most important country for Serbia - both politically and economically. If the German government no longer insists on democratic and constitutional standards for its own raw material interests, no one will. This particularly harms the brave democratic forces in Serbia that trust Germany.

The behaviour of German diplomacy towards Serbia has been visible for some time and is increasingly characterised by a policy of appeasement, even though Serbia does not support sanctions against Russia, pursues a strongly nationalist-revisionist political line and destabilises the region with Greater Serbian ambitions.

In the background are deals: Serbia, according to the Financial Times, supplies Ukraine with weapons worth 800 million euros. Vučić conducts an effective policy of balancing and thus lulls critics to sleep.

Policy of appeasement

The policy of appeasing the regime in Belgrade also comes at the expense of smaller neighbouring countries. It is noticeable, for example, that Germany has tied support for Kosovo's entry into the Council of Europe to new conditions and thus prevented it.

Serbia previously lobbied massively to prevent Kosovo's entry into the Council of Europe. During the negotiations on the Ohrid Agreement with Kosovo a year and a half ago, the German side allegedly promised Serbian representatives that it would support the lithium project. White gold is therefore used for political deals. Germany looks like a beggar, while Vučić scores points on all levels.

Despite the lithium agreement, Vučić has still not signed the Ohrid Agreement and regularly confirms that he will never do so. German CDU MP Knut Abraham rightly warns that "like Putin once did", a country can, due to economic relations, pursue an aggressive policy towards its neighbours with impunity.

In any case, raw materials diplomacy that suppresses the rule of law and EU standards strengthens autocratic behaviour and sends the wrong signal. The consequences of this will be felt in the Balkans.