Roast, buy me a kid...

I don't want to spoil the idyll, but I'm not alive if I don't say right away: despite the enthusiasm of the high-ranking guests and the equally enthusiastic hosts, this Tivat event about the Euro-Balkan version of (geo)political trade reminded me of an old song...

Father and Son, that's what it's called, and my subscribers will also remember what Đura Jakšić sang in it...

There was a fair, and at the fair, during the bilateral negotiation process, the father offered his son Tunisian hats, silver and gold, Venetian silk, a Geneva watch, and then Egyptian atha, a silk robe and gold-plated shoes...

The offer drags on for a whole chapter, until the son, in a dozen words, cuts short the offerer's ordeal: - Ah, grandma, grandma, buy me a roast, buy me a kid...

Yes, if the European menu in Tivat was at a higher level - first place on the list of future members, we can't wait for you to come - I would still give preference to the choice of the hungry boy...

* * *

That menu, translated from food language to political language, looks like this:

- Amendment of the laws on the police and the National Security Agency that are perverse and dangerous to freedom, justice and equality;

- Election of judges of the Constitutional Court;

- Bringing the Judicial Council into a functional state;

- Voting for MPs, not parties;

- Introduction of party trafficking into the Criminal Code, such as this one whose working title is Saving the Ranks, but not Ryan, but Sasha;

- Supplementing the Rules of Procedure with a list of prohibited and punishable words from 1998, regardless of the fact that the creator of that list has long been a fugitive from justice...

And, finally, the most important thing: The return of Vladan Mićunović to RTCG, but not to the Council, but to a position from which he will be able to guarantee the public's right to know...

I know that under the current law it is not possible, but the deputies have changed so many laws in the past three years to the detriment of all the inhabitants of Montenegro...

They could, wow, even this one in their favor...

* * *

I don't know what political benefits we will have from this gathering in Tivat, but in the details, only two caught my eye, and they are tourist...

A picture of the otherwise well-guarded President Macron training freely on the beautiful Montenegrin coast...

And the recommendation from Sanchez, the prime minister of a tourist power, that Montenegro is a special place to visit...

And the rest?... Well, that was another congress of admiration for Montenegro's great progress on its path to the European Union. The fact that no one recognizes it domestically didn't seem to worry either the guests or the hosts...

I mean progress, the path has long been recognized...

Anyway, it was nice to hear from the Europeans present that they continue to support us on this path...

And how impatiently they count the days until the next expansion...

And since Montenegro's goal - to become the 28th member of the European family in 2028 - is within reach...

However, it was not only not nice, but also not useful for the future member state that all of them (and) in Tivat were wearing the same slippers, pretending not to see what all reasonable residents of that future member state see...

That the goal of that journey is obviously no longer recognizable...

And that Montenegro, after decades of being recognized for endemic corruption, has become a country of endemic accession to the European Union in just three years...

Because its membership in the EU has become an end in itself...

* * *

Dumbing down lessons without understanding, that's how my teachers used to explain the pointlessness...

They seem to set some conditions for us and we seem to fulfill them, that's what they would say today, but there are no more teachers like that...

Not for children, but for adults who are learning European lessons without understanding that joining the community of European states only makes sense if we achieve European standards - all of them, not just some of the simplest ones - before joining...

We won't reach them...

Just as the so-called Tivat summit did not live up to the standards of its own name...

- More than thirty leaders will come here and together with us send an important message - so the hosts promised...

Of the twenty-seven presidents and prime ministers of the European Union member states - and this is a requirement for a gathering to deserve to be called a summit - every third one came...

* * *

Unfortunately, the media star has become an anti-European. And the very one who not only did not deserve a place among the visiting leaders, but also among the hosts, to whom I am including all the inhabitants of Montenegro on this occasion...

What he does (in) his country Serbia, let its citizens see it with him and with themselves...

For all the nasty things that this leader said about Montenegro over the past three weeks, if I may ask, he only deserved the title of persona non grata...

That's why, unlike the disappointed masses of people on social media, I am completely satisfied with the silence of the state leadership regarding his unstatesmanlike and inhumane statements...

I'm just really curious about how he should have reacted to the statement that "Montenegro seceded from Serbia", when he knows that we know that he knows that it's a lie...

Or, how to respond to threatening messages that they will "do everything to defend Serbs in Montenegro", from a government in which the percentage of members of the Serbian people is higher than in the population census...

What's the point of talking to a guy who says "that Serbia is ready for any kind of cooperation with Montenegro in the field of transport, tourism"...

And then they bring tourists to the sea by air, from which the mainland part of the country is still recovering, and they offer brotherly cooperation to them...

I can't even contain my gratitude for the hospitality of "thousands of Montenegrin citizens who welcomed me"...

And that's why the response will be short: thank him for "loving us more" than we loved him...

It wasn't necessary, what would have happened if he hated us...

* * *

Instead of futilely silencing the statements of an autocrat from a neighborhood that only he can reach, it would be more beneficial for Montenegro if the government worked a little on relations with other neighbors...

And that the patriotism of the nineties does not warm up, especially among those who support that government...

I know, it wasn't easy to hear once again the list of demands that Prime Minister Plenković presented in his address dedicated to "bilateral relations with Montenegro and Podgorica's negotiations with the European Union."

Croatia expects Montenegro - even before the end of accession negotiations - to resolve several open issues, and I quote:

- Compensation for camp inmates and the search for missing persons from the Homeland War;

- Prosecution of war crimes:

- Return of the training ship Jadran;

- The border issue and property disputes between Croatian families...

And to all that, a categorical stance:

- We have set these issues very clearly as a criterion, and ultimately as a condition for the completion of negotiations - the Croatian Prime Minister reiterated once again...

* * *

That's what we have, we are comforted by Plenković's statement that he "believes that Montenegro, with political will, could conclude the negotiations by the end of 2026."

It could, if this government would understandably learn the lesson that the former government had to learn twenty years ago, for the purposes of restoring independence...

This time, the need is called joining the European Union, but the lesson the government needs to learn is also related to the 1990s...

It is too extensive, but no matter how unpleasant, difficult and unacceptable the demands are to this government, the content of that material can be reduced to one sentence...

Montenegro owes Croatia much more:

- The lives of 116 civilians and 194 defenders;

- Detention of 443 people in camps;

- Expulsion of 33.000 inhabitants;

- Destruction of 2.071 residential buildings...

Isn't it enough to, for starters, stop this thieving heroism of a part of the government whose state was the aggressor and not the victim in the war against its neighbors...

And that, instead of war with patriotic announcements, he should sit down at the table...

While there's still time, 2026 ends in six months...