We have entered a new year - with a new Government. We will know very soon whether personal changes will remain the only novelty. When the first decisions begin, they leave the cabinet on which new nameplates have just been hung.
For some, these changes are desired, for others unexpected, for others just an insufficient step.
If we look at the field of environmental protection, the new government is really different, in terms of personnel and organization.
The ministries that covered areas important for environmental protection - urban planning, tourism, European integration, agriculture, water management and forestry as well as economic development - are organized differently and are now managed by other people. And many challenges await them.
Very soon it will be shown how much the new prime minister and the first people of the aforementioned departments really understand and how they perceive this area.
Is it only as an item from numerous European directives that should be incorporated into the neoliberal concept of development with as little media fanfare as possible (if it can be called development at all), or will they surprise us all by proving that they fundamentally understand what the environment actually means and how much is an important segment of sustainable economic development.
The inevitable test-chapter for the new Government, the most difficult and most important test when it comes to the environment, is the Morača HPP project. This very project is the perfect litmus test for the Government and the Parliament in the coming months. The legislative and executive authorities have the opportunity to demonstrate how up to the task they have undertaken.
Public interest and public data available to everyone should finally come to the fore. If it doesn't happen like that, it will follow - a flood, in the figurative but also the literal sense of the word.
Let's not forget - we have heard many times from the new president how this is - the Government of continuity. Somehow, it seems to me that the new prime minister emphasizes this term in order to publicly thank his predecessor.
I guess, let's hope, this does not mean that this continuity will be reflected in every segment of the future work and activities of the reconstructed Government. Actually, come to think of it, everywhere I turn - some discontinuity is expected.
In the case of Morač, it will be very unpragmatic to maintain continuity. If the new Government takes into account the public interest at all.
Simply - there are so many mistakes made in the whole business and practically there is not a single step that can be said to have been done in any way transparently, and most of them are also in violation of the law.
Not to mention biased economic and environmental studies, paid and volunteer lobbyists, violation of international standards, manipulations by PR agencies paid large sums of money, etc.
All of this resulted, of course, in a large deviation of the public from this project, and the negative evaluations of many prominent experts.
The new government, if it captures continuity in this field, will have the difficult and thankless role of verifying such an extremely badly done job.
If this Government, by any chance, does show some signs of discontinuity - then we should expect it to first admit to itself and then to the taxpayers the mistakes it made, but also to propose new solutions. However, any discontinuity with the previous Government regarding Morača is hard to imagine. But not impossible.
Hard to imagine because there are people in the cabinet who until now, both in the parliament and in the government, wholeheartedly defended the position - Montenegro needs power plants.
But what is dangerous is that most of them never showed that they wanted to get into the essence of the problem and it seemed as if they only declaratively supported this project only because their party comrades pushed it.
Now they are expected to give concrete answers - what kind of power plants, with what environmental standards, under what conditions would they be built and at whose expense.
This should be the topic of the new ministers and prime ministers, not the manipulative dilemmas imposed in the past - for or against power plants, for or against the economic development of Montenegro.
It is human to hope for greater understanding and entry into the essence of the ecological and economic aspects of this project from the new people in the cabinet.
However, it is realistic to expect, in such an unlikely scenario, a fierce reaction from exponents of the powerful energy lobby and their good friends with membership cards of political parties who, let's not forget, cooked up all this.
If it strictly adhered to the public interest, the Government of the promised continuity would be pushed into discontinuity and everything about who worked in the energy sector and who brought water to whose mill would surface. And that could be bad for many.
What will further complicate the Government's work around Morača (either continuity or discontinuity) is the parliament. With the recently stated position of the smaller coalition partner in power (whatever one may think about it), along with the negative evaluations of some of the opposition parties, it will take considerable energy to arrange things according to the principle of continuity during the debate on the Morača HPP in the parliament.
However, the parliamentary debate will clarify the relationship between the parliamentary parties regarding cooperation with the most powerful political party in Montenegro, as well as possible cooperation with them based on the principle of "when they agree to vote".
And of course, who will with whom and under what conditions and whether they will even enter together into bad projects for the citizens and the state.
Thus, whether we like it or not, Morača will enter the very core of the vision of future economic development, relations with natural resources, but also political relations in Montenegro.
I only hope that nothing will be the same after Morača. Nor the economic development so far, but most likely neither the current political scene in Montenegro.
Either we go all the way, to become a mere raw material base for the development of other countries, or we take another path. Thorny, steep, full of obstacles, but through development.
Soon Morač will reveal everything - who is who and who is with whom and on whose behalf. How only torrential waters can wash it away - all at once. At least we'll be clean. Although it seems to us that we already are, we are not yet.
Thank you Morača. In advance.
Bonus video:
