Montenegrin President: Prime Minister to be Judged by Voters, Courts, History

Milo Djukanovic (BetaPhoto/Hina)

Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic said on July 27 that “voters, courts and history” would judge Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic, if his policy was one to threaten the interests of Montenegro.

In an interview with Vojvodina’s portal Autonomija, President Djukanovic said that the country was given an opportunity to make progress in the accession talks with the European Union (EU), and that the chance was also opening the path to the EU.

“It’s only logical that Montenegro should be the next new member of the Union, because it’s well ahead of all other candidate countries in the negotiating process. Also, it has no geopolitical dilemmas, because it’s foreign and security policy has been aligned with the Union’s for several years already,” Djukanovic explained. Whether Montenegro will use the opportunity or not depends on the performance of the Government of Montenegro and other state bodies, the president added in the interview.

When asked for a comment on Prime Minister Abazovic’s statement that having paid a “historic visit” to Belgrade he managed to “reset” the bilateral relationship, the Montenegrin president asked back if “any visit can reset a relationship contaminated for nearly two centuries.” According to Djukanovic, for two centuries Serbia “has played the role of a hegemon” in the Western Balkans, “thinly veiled in Belgrade’s official concern about whether the Serbs in the region have been threatened.”