Residents of Cinovec, a remote Czech village near the German border, are mounting growing resistance to a planned lithium mine that the European Union views as a cornerstone of its critical raw materials strategy. The community of roughly 100 people — shaped for generations by the legacy of coal mining — fears that Europe’s renewed appetite for extraction will once again put local health, land and livelihoods at risk.
Mining was once the foundation of the former Czechoslovakia’s industrial economy, particularly in the Ústí region, where up to 80 coal sites operated between the 1940s and 1960s. But decades of pollution, health hazards and economic decline led to the closure of the final mine in 1993. For residents like Josef Fasmann, childhood memories of coal dust turning a snowman black remain symbolic of what the region endured.
Three decades later, mining companies have returned — this time pursuing lithium, a metal central to the EU’s strategy for electric vehicles, renewable technologies and defence applications. Geomet, a public-private venture backed in part by Brussels, is overseeing a $1.94-billion lithium project in Cinovec, believed to sit atop one of Europe’s largest untapped deposits. The Czech Geological Survey estimates that the site could hold around 3% of global lithium reserves, making it critical to the EU’s ambition to reduce dependence on imported refined lithium, which today stands at nearly 100%.
Lithium demand is expected to triple by 2040, according to the International Lithium Association, and the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act aims to fast-track domestic extraction. Yet residents fear that the environmental and social costs — once familiar from the coal era — are being overlooked. Community groups warn that while the EU promotes the project as essential for energy security and defence, the risks of pollution, industrial damage and disruption to local life remain largely unaddressed.
The tension encapsulates a broader dilemma for Europe: balancing strategic resource security with public acceptance in regions still scarred by the legacy of extractive industries. As the bloc pushes for mining to power its green transition, Cinovec is emerging as a key test of whether communities will accept a return to the model they thought they had left behind.
