Address by Ana Brnabic: Opposition wasted time to delay debate about lithium

Printscreen: Tanjug

The president of the Serbian Assembly, Ana Brnabic, today held a press conference.

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"It was important for me to address the citizens in this way and explain what is currently happening in the Assembly and why there will not be time to discuss the lithium issue. They (opposition) did all they could to delay this session, to waste time, and for the time allocated for the extraordinary session to run out," said Brnabic.

"I received this (draft) law from the opposition on September 10, and I had already organized the Collegium (advisory board) on the 18th. I said that we must first hold the budget rebalancing extraordinary session. We started working immediately. We started on Monday, in order to be done with the rebalancing earlier. Even that was not enough. We haven't even gotten to the 80th out of the 146 amendments. Nobody even talked about those amendments," said Brnabic.

During Ana Brnabic's speech, deputy Aleksandar "Cuta" Jovanovic interrupted her by showing a paper with the word "lies" written on it.

Brnabic said that the authorities do not shy away from any topic and that they are stand before citizens in a responsible manner.

"I scheduled and held a Collegium on June 14, during which I said we must discuss lithium. When we had the first extraordinary session in July, when we talked about the declaration brought by the All-Serb Assembly, I asked for the transcript, the terms, 'lithium' and 'Rio Tinto' were mentioned 534 times (at the time). Citizens must once again be aware that they (the opposition) have done everything in their power to (now) not discuss this bill," she added.

Earlier today, during the session on lithium, she said that President Aleksandar Vucic does not have the authority to attend, because it is a special session requested by the opposition, and she also assessed that the opposition was "buying time"  to make sure that this debate doesn't happen in the National Assembly.

(Telegraf.rs)