Montenegro’s president calls on EU to grant country membership

The EU can demonstrate its renewed commitment to the principle of enlargement by admitting its longest standing applicant, Montenegro, within five years, the country’s newly elected president has said.

“Our membership would be a story about more than Montenegro. It would show to accession countries that the path of reform pays off,” Jakov Milatović said in an interview with the Guardian.

In advance of of a visit to London this week, during which he is expected to meet Britain’s King Charles and the UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, Mr Milatović said enlargement needed to recapture its political spirit and not be reduced to a technical exercise.

“The whole EU process over the last 10 years became very technical and has since the big enlargement to the east in 2004 lost its political dimension,” Mr Milatović said.

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“The Russian aggression against Ukraine acted as a wake-up call in Brussels and other European capitals that accession had to be a geopolitical aspect. Obviously, it retains a technical dimension, but our membership would show to sceptical publics that enlargement is still alive, and is not just a matter for elites.”

Mr Milatović also emphasised that Montenegro’s pro-western orientation would not change even though the prime minister, Mr Milatović’s ally, had been forced into an alliance with a pro-Serbia party to form a government after parliamentary elections in the summer. He vowed “100 per cent alignment with EU foreign policy” and a “more credible” membership with Nato.

The tiny Adriatic republic with a population of 619,000 applied to join the EU in 2008, two years after gaining independence from Serbia, but progress has stalled amid concerns about corruption, lingering Soviet influence and endemic political instability. Croatia, by contrast, applied in 2003 and joined in 2013, the last country to do so.

A former Chevening scholar and an economist fluent in three languages, Mr Milatović was elected president in April at the age of 37 hoping that his five-year term would mark the end of an era of authoritarian politics. Representing the newly formed centrist Europe Now! party, he crushed his rival Milo Đukanović, a man who along with his party, the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), had dominated Montenegro’s politics since independence.

[ The EU imagines expanding to include as many as 35 member states ]

Much of Mr Milatović’s appeal was based on hopes of economic rejuvenation and an end to state-endorsed corruption. He promised a spirit of national reconciliation between ethnic groups and offered a path out of the political instability that has plagued functioning government since 2020. Above all, he held out the best promise of EU membership.

Enlargement is once again top of the Brussels agenda. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said in her annual “state of the union” address last month that the EU must prepare for radical changes needed to admit new countries to the bloc. “We cannot afford to leave our fellow Europeans behind,” she said.

Mr Milatović insists that, of the 10 countries seeking membership, Montenegro is the true front-runner. His country has been a Nato member since 2017, he points out, it uses the euro, and per capita prosperity is 55 per cent of the EU average.

Describing himself as a realist, he said he foresaw a timetable according to which EU member states would ratify Montenegro’s membership in 2027, leading to full membership in 2028.

Vital progress had been made on the cornerstone issue of judicial reform, he said, which had led to the removal and sometimes arrest of “dirty people” in the judiciary linked with organised crime. He admitted, however, that there was a lack of political consensus on who should fill the vacancies, including the post of supremestate prosecutor, which has been empty since June last year.

Mr Milatović said his leadership would have zero tolerance of corruption, and that a new parliamentary majority would lead to judicial appointments by the end of this year. Improvements to the rule of law would be “a massive signal that the country is making progress”, he said.

Some of the momentum from Mr Milatović’s election has dissipated, however, because of the inability of Milojko Spajić, the prime minister designate and co-founder of Europe Now! to form a government.

[ The Irish Times view on EU enlargement: the war in Ukraine has changed the picture ]

His party emerged as the largest in parliamentary elections in June, winning 24 of the 81 seats in the assembly, the first time the DPS had failed to win most seats since multiparty politics was introduced in 1990.

Mr Spajić ruled out a coalition with the DPS, but with 18 political parties gaining seats, he failed to form a majority government and last week ended up forming an alliance that allowed a route into power for a pro-Serb coalition.

His decision led to fierce criticism from the US ambassador to Montenegro, Judy Reising Reinke, who said it would hinder Montenegro’s pro-EU aspirations if a government was formed that included parties that actively opposed “Euro-Atlantic values.”

The US fears that by forming a coalition with pro-Serb political forces, Mr Spajić has created at best a dysfunctional government and at worst one that will have lost its pro-EU credentials.

Mr Milatović insists the prime minister’s key objective has been to secure a supermajority in the parliament to unlock the judicial reforms.

“As president I have been very clear since the elections that the three foreign policy objectives remain: more credible membership of Nato, 100 per cent alignment with EU foreign policy including the sanctioning of Russia and independence of Kosovo, and good neighbourly relations, including Serbia and Kosovo. Those are the principles I expect from the new government.”

The extent to which ethnic divisions can unsettle politics, however, is demonstrated by a battle raging over whether a census of the population can go ahead as planned on November 1st. Opposition parties are threatening a boycott of the census, which Mr Milatović insists is a purely statistical exercise, over fears pro-Russia forces will pour out propaganda and inflate the numbers identifying as Serbian.

The episode shows how great the task Mr Milatović and his colleagues face in assuring Brussels and his supporters that Europe Now! does not become “Europe Sometime”. – Guardian