There is no one who sat in the Parliament of Montenegro on April 22/23, 2025, anyone who watched the broadcast of the Session, anyone who read or heard anything about the Agreement with the UAE on tourism and real estate, a freelance or hired analyst... who does not understand that this agreement is immeasurably harmful to Montenegro. At the same time, it threatens its accession to the EU, it grossly violates the Constitution, and suspends a large number of laws and other regulations. There is no guarantee that the investor will do any of what is being talked about, and ideal conditions are created for enormous corruption that can easily occur, is very difficult to detect, and even more difficult to prove. And if it is proven by some chance, the damage cannot be repaired.
We don't need to worry about the European journey, because the DF promised us that it would carry us to Brussels on its back, so whoever doesn't like it should get off before Brodarev.
There is no need to worry about constitutionality, because the Constitutional Court, as soon as it completes its joint-stock company, and before the expiration of the 99-year term, will decide whether someone has violated the Constitution.
After all, no one will even notice all this about Europe and the Constitution, or they will quickly forget it when we are swept away by the prosperity of citizens of all faiths and infidelities, as well as the revival of Montenegro, the very next day after the deputies in the Parliament finally applaud the final decision.
In this excitement to make Montenegro happy as soon as possible, through urgent procedures, no one even read the Agreement, and there are three drastic inaccuracies in the Explanatory Memorandum, which is its integral part.
1. Constitutional basis - Point I. It refers to Article 100, point 1 of the Constitution, “The Government shall conduct domestic and foreign policy,” whatever that means. Development policy, and the Agreement is a blatant example of that policy, is conducted by the Parliament, which, at the proposal of the Government, adopts the Development Plan and the Spatial Plan of Montenegro (Article 82 of the Constitution). The Constitution was proclaimed in 2007, and today we do not have a Development Plan (nor has any Government proposed one for the past 18 years), nor a Spatial Plan that has been unsuccessfully filled and supplemented since 2018. These documents determine which “investments are of key importance for the national economy and of strategic and public interest.”
2. Reasons for concluding the Agreement - Point III. It is incorrect that the Agreement between the Government of Montenegro and the Government of the UAE on Economic Cooperation from 2011 has expired, but rather Article 1 of the new Agreement on Economic Cooperation has made it invalid. Why?
3. Assessment of required financial resources - Point V. It is claimed that for the implementation of the Contract (and not the Agreement?) it is not necessary to provide additional financial resources in the Budget of Montenegro, which is a blatant untruth, because several billion euros need to be provided for the new infrastructure, which are not planned in the current budget of Montenegro, nor in the long term.
The Government has signed, and the Parliament has already confirmed once that an unknown project, by an unknown investor, is of public interest for Montenegro, without a single letter of coherent explanation. At the same time, they are misleading the public by providing incorrect information about the business of the same "unknown" investor in Croatia, forgetting that this is the age of the Internet and that everything is verifiable. (Note: some hotels were purchased, which were built before 1991 and privatized in the 90s. The contracts are not with the state of Croatia).
According to the Agreement, the Government of Montenegro will provide the necessary land and build public infrastructure for the implementation of the Project. The total value of Montenegro's investment, according to media reports, is over 20 billion euros. What does Montenegro get for this large investment?
The government claims that it is not selling, nor leasing land, nor charging for the extremely expensive existing and additional infrastructure. It expects huge benefits from profit sharing (dividends), and there is no profit, nor has there been any from all previous state-owned businesses in tourism. The most famous brand, the one that manages Sveti Stefan, has so far shown operating losses exceeding 100 million euros. So what can it give us? And we are surprised that it left. For anyone, that is a lot of money.
An even better example is “Luštica”, because it is similar to the business from the Agreement. There, the state ceded about 7 million m2 of land, beaches and sea, built all the necessary infrastructure (water, sewage, power lines, substations, power grids, roads, etc.), allowed the investor to urbanize, design and build as he wishes, sell and charge for the built villas, apartments and business premises. In addition, the government transferred the unpaid 10 million euros in rent into idle share capital. There is no official report on the benefits of Montenegro from this much-praised project. We learn from the media that the value of the share capital of “Lustica development” ad in 2024 is only 69 million euros, and Montenegro’s participation is 12%. How? By what calculation?
It will be similar with the new project. Montenegro's investment of over 20 billion euros will actually be a gift, which the investor will not give away, but will resell and earn many times over. There are certainly some interests here, but they are not public, not for the public.
There will be little benefit from building, equipping and operating "mixed-use real estate", i.e. apartments. There will be no workers from our side on the construction site, because there are none for the existing ones. Our nails will not be driven in, because we do not produce them. Every chair, bed, umbrella... will be imported, as will every glass, napkin, toothpick and most food and drink. Our tourism workers are still from the furthest reaches of Asia. Billions from apartment sales will end up, as before, in distant destinations.
With the agreement, we undertake to provide the necessary infrastructure, which we do not have, or which is in very poor condition, both in the south and in the north of Montenegro. The infrastructure also includes a new airport, which is expected to cost several hundred million euros. At the same time, we are giving our very profitable airports into concession for a minor fee, because we allegedly do not have the money to maintain them.
Finally, the "unknown investor" introduced himself to us in a live TV broadcast, talking about business successes around the world, but I didn't understand what he would do specifically in Montenegro. However, he told us a very painful truth - that Porto Montenegro is known all over the world, but that few people have heard of Montenegro. And this is told to us by a man who said that he is the child of illiterate parents from the Arabian desert, born around the time when "Sveti Stefan" was the brightest spot on planet Earth - the winner of the "Golden Apple". And we still have two directors alive, of what was once the best hotel in the world, and from the period when it was the best.
Montenegro has made many mistakes in the past 35 years. Unfortunately, a large part of them are due to poor knowledge and even bad intentions of those who made decisions. It is time to break with this "tradition". For starters, let the Parliament adopt the Development Plan and Spatial Plan of Montenegro. Many things will become clearer.
Bonus video:
