Municipal majority can stop detailed plan for graphite mine in Vittangi, page-23

Old news, but look at the weakness of the argument: "Mats Sidmalm believes that it is irresponsible to open a graphite mine in Vittangi because the material may not be needed in the near future, as the development in the battery industry is going at a furious pace."

Apparently Mats Sidmalm, who is a local council member with an anti-mining agenda in isolated little Kiruna, believes he has more knowledge than the entire battery industry. Forget Simon Moores, the US congress should bring in Mats to explain the shortages of critical minerals. Laughable. Why make up reasons? Just be honest and say you're a NIMBY.

I said it back when this news broke 6 months ago, the local municipality overruling the courts by denying a detailed plan will set a dangerous precedent, making the court system in Sweden redundant. The local municipality, if they do indeed get a majority, could potentially obstruct briefly before the national government steps in. We've seen what happened with Cementa - if the national government deems it important enough, they step in and right the wrongs with emergency legislative changes.

Also, not to contradict my previous statement about overruling the courts setting a dangerous precedent (as the national government sort of did this with a bill in the Cementa case) but there is a big difference between the national government preventing an absolute disaster to their construction industry and local government being filled with activists that are too big for their boots.