After the New Year, we will go to a referendum and vote on changes to the Constitution, and the Assembly has already formulated a question to which we will answer with “yes” or “no”. If there is another referendum, the one that has been talked about for some time, and it concerns the extraction of lithium from Western Serbia, then it would be wise for people from Volkswagen to participate in making the question. First, because half of Serbia is either driving now, or used to drive their car, so when we already believe in their cars, maybe we can listen to some advice from the people who make them. The second and much more important is this week’s announcement from Volkswagen, which we should take very seriously when solving some current dilemmas, and because of which we may go to another referendum.

The Germans announced huge investments in a short period of time on Wednesday, because their goal is to overtake “Tesla” and become the world leader in the production of electric cars. They intend to build six large lithium battery factories in Europe, and the entire vertical supply chain of raw materials that will “feed” those factories. They are already planning a mind-blowing 30 billion euros for the entire job, and they want to finish it by the end of this decade.

Serbia and its lithium are not mentioned in Volkswagen’s plans, but they almost don’t have to. Everything is as if it has been “drawn” for Serbia. First, at least one of the planned six factories will be in “Eastern Europe”, as they say, and maybe some more, because the locations are still being searched for. Secondly, VW wants to be sure that its factories will have a good and stable supply of raw materials, such as lithium. Each factory will cost one to two billion euros, and decisions about them and about finding a partner for this job will be made quickly, starting next Thursday, and in the following few weeks.

These things will not be discussed at anti-lithium demonstrations in Serbian cities. Who cares? It will only be important for Rio Tinto to be expelled from Serbia as loudly as possible, and even more important is to shout against Vučić. Why do we need lithium, Vučić and Volkswagen, why do we need the giant from the New York Stock Exchange? They say, we do not want to give up our clear rivers and green meadows, gardens and forests. One of the speakers will be the new “green” politician who was invented, raised and financed by the biggest polluter Serbia has seen, a longtime polluter of the same Western Serbia, from whose ore tailings poison has been leaking for years, because the law did not apply to him. He will be applauded by angry farmers defending their expensive, sprayed vegetables and fruits, grown on land with more pesticides than worms and flooded with water that barely broke through plastic bottles, discarded chassis, stoves and washing machines.

These people do not want to know that they have a chance of a lifetime around the corner, for them, for their children and for their country, which they say they love and “don’t want to give” (to whom?). And that’s why they won’t even hear about Volkswagen’s plans, because they are only interested in ecology, so after the demonstrations they will drive home in a broken down golf diesel, which poisons the environment just like their sprayed cucumber from the garden.

These are dangerous people. Their action is as deadly as their anti-vaccine siblings, only in the long run. With their ignorance, carelessness for themselves and others, and especially with their political insolence, they will convince some people that all of them are Robin Hood of Serbian green fields. In fact, they are the most common political profiteers who are only interested in April 3 and the elections. These people are not interested in the fact that in the coming weeks and months, Serbia should decide whether the primitive land from which people emigrate will be polluted by its own hand, or to accept the world’s giants, their new green technology, billions, jobs and bounce back into the century in which the most developed countries in the world already are.

They bow to gossip from Facebook, and when a simple chemical formula from primary school shows them that lithium in Jadar cannot pollute Jadar or Drina, they angrily curse that you are a “sandwich-lover” of Vučić and Rio Tinto. They are followers of charlatans and politicians, even if they were university professors, whose “arguments” do not pass the test, again, from primary school. The only thing they are shooting at is Vučić, and if there is no luck and intelligence, they will hit the whole of Serbia permanently.

Their victory would be the triumph of polluted Serbia; it would be the victory of the losers who are afraid of progress, because it is much easier for them to cry over their failure blaming someone else, while emigrating from the “most beautiful” and “most fertile” part of Serbia, which they defended until yesterday. From that column, they will watch some other nation in Eastern Europe building the most modern Volkswagen factory, clean as a pharmacy, how they earn more than ever and how it never occurs to them to move. Because of this malicious show that is unfolding before our eyes, and especially because of the plans of huge world industries that are being solved at the same time, Serbia must not be in any dilemma. The answer we will give now will direct Serbia either towards a successful, rich and “green” world, or it will leave it drowning in its wild landfills, from which someone will shout for a short time against Vučić, lithium, Volkswagen, so he, too, will move away. That is as far as the answer is concerned, and we could call people from Volkswagen for help with the question.