Europe's largest lithium mine: “We are sacrificed for the energy transition”

The cat strokes her legs. Aida Fernandes and her husband Nelson blink into the spring sun. It rained for a long time. Now her little herd of cattle is outside again in the outlet in front of the stable, behind which olive trees stand on lush green meadows. “Everyone is happy,” says the Portuguese farmer, but her voice sounds sad. Her husband has just turned off the pitchfork because his mobile phone shows an urgent message. “A black day,” says Nelson Gomes and passes the device on to his wife: The European Commission has declared its small village as a “strategic project”. A large green circle around the surrounding area marks the “Barroso Lithium Project” on the new EU card.

Among the forested mountains around Covas do Barroso, “White Gold” – probably the largest European occurrence of lithium, the raw material that electric cars urgently need. It is literally “behind the mountains”. This means the name of the lonely region in the high northeast of the country.

With the parade project for the extraction of lithium, the Portuguese government and the EU want to prove that Europe is independent and no longer dependent on states like China. For the EU Commission, it is “a milestone for European sovereignty as an industrial night”. A total of 47 strategic projects are intended to ensure domestic raw material care. The EU is now helping that it is quick in Portugal.

“We are sacrificed for the energy transition,” says Aida Fernandes Bitter and points to the other side of the valley. A small piece of forest is cleared there. Employees of the British mining company Savannah Resources are still doing trial bores, next year the work in the opencast mine should start. In 2027, investors want to promote the first spodums from which lithium could become half a million electric car batteries a year – or more.

For this, Savannah has secured an area of ​​almost 600 hectares. Four hundreds of meter deep mining holes will gap where forest grows today. In addition, mountains with more than 80 million tons of overlap. Water runs are redirected, bypass roads and a processing plant are built. Investors want to spend 350 million euros in one of the poorest areas of Portugal. For 14 years, the machines will be in the forest lubrican.

Her two dogs accompany Aida Fernandes from the stable with the two dozen brown limousine cattle and a large crowd of chicken down the mountain. The concession begins less than 400 meters away at an intersection in the forest. “They think that at the southern periphery of Europe we are stupid donkeys with which they can do everything,” says the 45 -year -old farmer. She fears for her untouched home, which she never left; Their ancestors were already farmers.

Aida Fernandes knows her like few others. As the president of the assembly of the villagers, she watches over the “Baldios”. These are the pastures and forests that all use together. The world nutrition organization FAO has explained the area of ​​the only world of agriculture in Portugal: people inhabit and have been managing them for thousands of years. Sixty percent of the common areas will now be part of the lithium concession.

Finally spring is. In the gardens behind the houses made of gray granite and in the fields behind old stone walls, sowing and planted are everywhere. Beans, potatoes, grain. A shepherd drives his herd over the lush green meadows. Around 300 people live in the three districts that connect curvy roads. They are so narrow that cars and tractors can hardly avoid. “We have everything here and can take care of ourselves,” says Filip Gomes. The water in the river is so clean that trout swimming in it. The son of Nelson Gomes sells the honey of his bees in the café, which he opened with his life partner Ira a few months ago at the village square.

At the place around a stone cross from the 18th century there is everything that makes up the place: proud of your history and tradition, fresh start – and fear. The smoke -rolled bakery of the community stands opposite the café. In addition, posters flutter with the inscription “Não à mina! Sim à vida” (no to the mine! Yes to life!). They hang everywhere and apply to the group from London, whose sign is emblazoned at a house. Savannah has set up a small citizens' office there. For almost eight years, hundreds of demonstrators have gathered on Kreuz-Square to protest against the lithium plans.

The Portuguese village behind the mountains has become a scene for a battle with a completely new front. Environmentalists fight with the residents against a project to help to get the consequences of climate change under control and to promote electromobility. The raw materials for the energy transition are to be promoted in Europe with European standards and no longer come from Africa or South America, as is the case with the lithium.

In Covas do Barroso, the accusation hurts that a dozen fat skulls are just progressing just because they wanted their calm. “They accuse us that we are not ready to sacrifice ourselves for the planet,” says Nelson Gomes. Activists like him demand to rethink the entire energy change. You have to reduce and not exploit nature even more. The world no longer needs electric cars, but more public transport.

For Nelson's son Filip and many neighbors, it is not just about a different energy policy. He and his partner Ira put all her money into the small stone house. In recent years, many guest workers from France, Germany and Great Britain have returned to the loneliness of their place of origin, have renovated or rebuilt. The couple met in London, where they both worked as cooks. They invested 150,000 euros in their new restaurant and the apartment over it. The bar has become the new meeting point. Soon there should not only be marble cake and muffins. “We want to offer dishes with meat and vegetables. This is sustainable,” says Filip Gomes and adds worries: “If the mine does not thwart us.”

The distrust is great and finally grown. The recent exploration results are “really exciting,” said Savannah in January. They indicated a larger occurrence than the previously estimated 28 million tons: it was the largest European deposit for spodums, from which lithium can be obtained for up to a million electric car batteries a year. A total of four female caves are planned in the region.

It all started almost conspiratorously eight years ago when a few workers on the old feldspar mine were troubled on the other side of the valley. At first it looked as if only they were to be reactivated. A villager who lived in Great Britain met with information about the lithium project in the press there. The concession area grew from a few hectares to 600. Many therefore feel about the government in the distant Lisbon.

“There should never be negotiations with those affected. The only decision against which they were made was:” yes or yes', “says Diogo Sobral. The sociologist moved from Lisbon to the village. There he researched for his doctoral thesis on the protest movement, which he belongs to himself. “The Portuguese government is an EU priest and acts as a project developer.” Not all protests were peaceful like the summer camp. For seven months, activists blocked the machines of the exploration teams. At the turn of the year there was an attack on the small Savannah office.

In Lisbon, socialists, such as conservatives at the head of the government, emphasize that the local population has no veto law against the use of national resources. It is pointed out that everything goes his prescribed gait: almost two years ago, an environmental impact assessment made only a few requirements. The path is almost free, the last complaints are more like retreat battles.

Not everything at Savannah in dealing with the residents in recent years, admits Thomas Gaultier, “we had to work on that”. As a “Community Relations Manager”, he has been trying to win the population for the project, which can still be visited as a model in his office in the nearby district town of Boticas. It takes up a large part of the room. The French -born with a legal approval in New York is a professional mediator. He has already taught for mining companies in the Republic of Congo, Sambia and Mozambique.

His new task is sometimes “a little frustrating,” says Gaultier, who speaks fluently Portuguese. A few “gatekeepers” in the village refused to dialogue and tried to prevent at least others from getting their own picture. It is clear who the lawyer is talking about, everyone knows everyone behind the mountains.

Thomas Gaultier has organized a monthly radio show, and information material is piling up in the office: Elaborately printed brochures about “good neighborhood” with advantages for everyone – more than 200 direct jobs and ten times as many indirect places. The fact that the mine will have a closed water cycle and does not need the Covas river. About noise and dust protection.

“Unfortunately we move towards expropriations, even though we have made a friendly offer,” says Thomas Gaultier. Almost ten million euros are planned for community country. Unfortunately, however, there are no conversations with Aida Fernandes' “Baldio” Association. On the homepage of Savannah, the investors write: “We understood”: You listened to people and it was a “safe project of all for all”. Never more than two open -cast mines should be in operation at the same time. And immediately everything is refilled and reforested – as if nothing had happened, only with a better infrastructure.

Actually, the investors wanted to be further. A new refinery in Germany is already waiting for the raw material from the Barroso. The AMG Lithium BV, which also has a seat in Frankfurt, took part in Savannah with around $ 20 million. With a share of 16 percent, the company has become the largest shareholder and secures the delivery of up to 90,000 tons of spodums for lithium production annually-a total of more than 190,000 tons are planned a year. The Portuguese mine is to supply the new refinery in Bitterfeld via a seaport near Porto.

The Export credit insurance Euler Hermes (now Allianz Trade) is also interested in the project. It is said to be a coverage of up to 270 million euros, possibly in cooperation with the German Kreditanstalt für recovery (KfW) and the federal government. According to its own statements, the KfW subsidiary IPEX is at the beginning of an extensive examination phase.

In Covas do Barroso it is difficult to find someone who speaks for the mine. The opponents seem tired, their confidence has disappeared. But the farmers continue. The centuries -old Espigueiros rise from granite in front of their farms. On high columns, the memory protects corn and other food from the mice. They fall into many places, they are filled in the village every year.