Lithium Before Democracy: A Serbian Strongman and His German Shadow

Paid from German coffers, Jörg Heeskens has been advising Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic since almost the moment he took power.

A mountain of documents obtained by BIRN/Der Spiegel show just how closely Heeskens has worked with Vucic on a deeply unpopular lithium mining project, exposing what critics say is German complicity in the president’s subversion of democracy.