A new generation of politicians taking over Montenegro has pledged to speed up the reforms it needs to join the European Union and take advantage of the “window of opportunity” created by the war in Ukraine.
Jakov Milatović, a 36-year-old former EBRD economist, won the Adriatic nation’s presidency last month after pushing to speed up accession talks . His defeat of the incumbent, Milo Djukanovic, who had led the country for 33 years, marked a new dawn for the country of 620,000 people, which until 2006 was united with Serbia and loyal to Russia.
“It feels like a new beginning,” said Ivana Popović, a mother who watched her children gain independence in downtown Podgorica, the country’s capital. Play in the square. “We’ve been poor and corrupt for far too long. Leaders shouldn’t be there for 30 years. Ten at the most.”
Milatovic’s rise has been swift. He has now founded his Europe! (PES) party only in 2022. The party also performed strongly in last year’s local elections and is on track to win the June 11 parliamentary elections. Recent opinion polls suggest the party will win about 30 percent of the vote, which would allow the PES government to muster the majority needed to pass the reforms needed to join the European Union.
“The EU needs a success story (and) wants Montenegro to succeed,” Milatovic said in an interview after his inauguration on May 21, which coincided with the 17th anniversary of the country’s independence from Serbia.
Montenegro has joined NATO, but membership negotiations with the EU have stalled due to slow progress on most accession criteria, notably the rule of law and corruption.
Yet the war in Ukraine has focused attention in EU capitals on the dangers of ignoring countries previously in Russia’s orbit, with Berlin and Brussels driving fresh momentum in the Balkans. EU enlargement has largely been on hold since the bloc took in Croatia a decade ago, while the rest of the western Balkans linger at various stages of the process.
“Unfortunately, the EU responded politically in the Western Balkans only after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Milatovic said. “For ten years, the whole enlargement process has been very technical; now, there is a window of opportunity in the next year or two where Montenegro can take an important step forward.”
Only three of the EU’s 33 so-called accession chapters have been ticked, a deadline that may prove difficult to meet. Strong historical, cultural, religious and linguistic ties to Serbia further hamper PES’s ambitions. Belgrade continued to resent the West after NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 in a brief war over Kosovo’s future.
When he entered politics in 2020, Milatovic said his country was “more like Kazakhstan than a Western European country,” with China, Azerbaijan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates the biggest investors and about 30 percent of tourists from Russia. “Little to no economic ties to the EU, US or UK . . . something went wrong.”
In 2015, China provided a $1 billion loan — one-fifth of Montenegro’s GDP — in an opaque bilateral agreement to finance the construction of a highway to Serbia. The hedge on the loan is due to expire this summer, exposing Podgorica to significant currency risk.
Milatovic said the new government would urgently review the debt, which is nearly two decades away from maturity, and could refinance it with Western aid. The rest of the highway will also need more money to open up access to Europe through Serbia, he said.
PES prime ministerial candidate Milojko Spajić said the new government would work on addressing shortcomings in the rule of law and fighting corruption.
“Đukanović has mismanaged the economy, the country is really corrupt,” Spajić said. “The rule of law is basically a joke. We’re going to fix that.”
Djukanovic dismissed such political claims. “It is logical . . . I am the embodiment of the power structure of the past 30 years,” he told the Financial Times after attending the inauguration of his successor. “I deny a million times that I or my family are involved in any corrupt activity, yet my opponents love to use this against me.”
Often described as autocratic, Djukanovic has alternated between the prime minister and presidency almost continuously since 1991, making him Europe’s longest-serving leader.
“Đukanović was a dinosaur,” said Predrag, a taxi driver in Podgorica. “He left a big footprint in Montenegro.”
Still, the former president is popular with many Montenegrins for turning around the fortunes of the impoverished former Yugoslavia, avoiding the wars that engulfed its neighbor in the 1990s and launching the European Union by joining NATO in 2017. Negotiations made it head west.
“Our turn to the west is a U-turn,” Djukanovic said. “Montenegro has historically been allied primarily with Russia.”
The former president also oversaw a gradual post-2006 transfer away from Belgrade, including recognition of Kosovo’s independence in 2008, as Serbia continued to challenge Kosovo’s statehood.
“We recognize Kosovo not because of an obligation to cooperate with the Euro-Atlantic community,” Djukanovic said. “We told Belgrade’s neighbors that Serbia lost Kosovo because of wrong policies.”
The western track faces challenges. In 2016, as Podgorica was preparing to join NATO, Djukanovic said his opponents attempted a coup with Russian help. Although Moscow has denied the claims, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control described “Russian financial support for Montenegrin political parties ahead of Montenegrin’s 2016 elections.”
Montenegro jailed a dozen people in 2016 for their roles, including two Serbian nationalist lawmakers and two Russians.
Besides the PES politicians, another member of the new generation is Dritan Abazović, the current prime minister and leader of the United Reform Action, a green liberal pro-European party. Abazovic, who is ethnic Albanian and Muslim, has won respect for working with a broad range of political forces, including Serb parties.
“Dritan is fantastic,” Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said. “This young guard from Montenegro is going to do a lot in the area.”