Taraba Calls on Battery Plant Investor Not to Gamble with Investment Reputation

Bratislava, April 24 (TASR) - The Environment Ministry has already warned the investor in a battery plant in Surany (Nitra region) for submitting unprofessional and inaccurate documentation, the ministry's communications department has told TASR in reaction to statements by the opposition 'Slovakia' party, adding that suspension of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) will be the next step. At the same time, Environment Minister Tomas Taraba (a Slovak National Party/SNS nominee) has called on the investor not to gamble with the reputation of the investment and to provide timely and correct information. "The Environment Ministry has also called on opposition politicians to distinguish between the procedures by which the Surany industrial park and the battery plant investment itself are being assessed. These are two separate and independent procedures, and opposition representatives, as well as several activists, are obviously confusing them. The fact is that the investor supplied information to the Environment Ministry for the first time on April 22, 2025, and the so-called 'big EIA' for operating the battery plant in Surany only began based on that," stated the ministry. The ministry stressed that its experts immediately assessed this information as insufficient. According to the ministry, there are fundamental shortcomings in the documents submitted by the investor. The Environment Ministry insists that the plant in question creates the prerequisites for it to be classified under the law on serious industrial accidents as an entity that plans to handle hazardous chemicals. "The investor's representatives have been informed about these facts. Therefore, the ministry is taking steps to suspend the EIA procedure for the battery plant in Surany," said the ministry's communications department. The 'Slovakia' party claimed at a news conference earlier in the day that the government was neglecting safety regarding the battery plant project in Surany, where thousands of tonnes of pollutants will be handled. According to 'Slovakia' MPs, the state failed to assess the risks of such a huge project and didn't use sufficient procedures to prevent the risk of an industrial accident. ko/df