Discussion: The “Green Transition” and its Costs for the Balkans

Discussion: The “Green Transition” and its Costs for the Balkans: Resisting Authoritarian Extractivism in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia

Arnold-Bode 8 / Raum 0113/0114, Campus Holländischer Platz

The language of discussion will be English/Die Diskussion wird auf Englisch stattfinden.

Mining projects are on the rise in the Balkans, especially in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. They are advertised as projects for green development of impoverished deindustrialized peripheries of the European Union. However, given the power imbalances between the capitalist European core countries and the post-Yugoslav region and the power imbalances between local political and economic elites on the one hand and workers on the other, the reality of extractivist projects looks different. Only a small share of the produced wealth remains in the region, whereas forests, water and agricultural soil are damaged. Throughout the Balkans, protest movements against authoritarian extractivism in the name of green transition have emerged, most visibly in Serbia against lithium mining, but the resistance is broader and it is growing. It is this conflictual and contradictory tension, that we want to engage with in our panel discussion.

Moderation: Aleksandra Draganic (Global Labour University)

Panel discussants: Activists from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Carla Noever Castelos, (Universität Kassel), Edlira Xhafa (GLU Online Academy) and others (tba)

The discussion is part of a series of events, problematizing the costs of the Green Transition for the Balcans and organized by the research network "JUST. Just and sustainable transformation".