Kazandol Is Back in the Spatial Plan: The State Won the Arbitration Over the Mine, and Now the Draft Puts It Back on the Map

The environmental society "Kalinka" from Valandovo has filed formal objections to the draft Spatial Plan of Macedonia to 2040. It has one demand, and it leaves no room for interpretation: Kazandol has to disappear from the document - from the text and from the maps - with no status as an existing, planned or potential mining site.

A mine the state already shut down - and defended shutting down

The government cancelled the concession for copper, gold and silver at Kazandol in March 2018. The Ukrainian investors behind the concession holder, Sardich MC, took the state to the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and demanded 59.9 million euros. In July 2025 the tribunal dismissed every one of their claims.

So the state closed the project, then proved before an international tribunal that it had every right to close it. Less than a year and a half after that ruling, the country's most important long-term planning document lists Kazandol again. Why would the state put back on the map a mine it took six years of litigation to get rid of?

What the draft actually says

Kazandol sits on page 187, in the list of metal mines, alongside Ilovica-Shtuka, Plavica, Kadiica and Luke. According to "Kalinka", page 52 matters more. There the draft states that the mine is not yet active, but that there are "favourable geological, mining and geomorphological conditions for opening mining capacity within the planning period".

That is a big difference. Writing down that a mountain contains ore is one thing. Writing down that the ore can be dug out before 2040 is another.

Being in the Spatial Plan doesn't mean the excavators roll in tomorrow. Every mine still needs a concession, an environmental impact assessment and permits. But the plan is the framework that every lower-level plan and every one of those procedures later has to fit into - and whatever makes it into the framework becomes the starting point for everything that follows.

A farming region with the door left open for mines

"Kalinka" also points to a contradiction inside the draft itself. It describes the Southeast as one of the most important agricultural areas in the country - according to the objections, it produces around 29% of the gross value added in agriculture - and the plan calls for strict protection of farmland against pollution. Yet in that same document, the prospect of metal mining stays open for the Southeast.

The society reminds everyone that Kazandol is not just Valandovo's problem. Valandovo, Bogdanci, Dojran and Gevgelija form one naturally and economically connected area, with intensive and organic farming, and Lake Dojran right next to it. According to "Kalinka", the people of these municipalities already said what future they want back in 2017, through civic initiatives and referendums.

The society sees the same logic at Kozhuf. The mountain is being considered for protection and designation as a national park, while the wider area around it is still filed under mineral resources.

The question still waiting for an answer

The Strumica region already had its say at the first public hearing - there, residents demanded that Ilovica-Shtuka and Kazandol be erased. Now the demand to erase Kazandol is coming from Valandovo too, and it brings the project's legal history with it.

"Kalinka" has put the question on the record: on what legal, planning, economic and environmental basis was Kazandol written back into the plan, when the concession has been cancelled? The institutions' answer will show whether objections raised at public hearings can actually change the draft - or whether they are just a box to tick before it gets adopted.