Milo Đukanović introduced the Adriatic republic into NATO. Russians and half of Montenegrins are not happy about that
In the old, royal capital of Cetinje, the Montenegrin parliament sealed its entry into NATO on Friday. This temporarily ends the long internal political conflict in the small country, which has 620.000 inhabitants. The twenty-ninth country of the Military Alliance has had candidate status since 2010. Part of the opposition - and according to the results of public opinion polls, such a minority of the population - was and is against membership, but the government still gave up on asking the people.
Strategically important
The entry of the Montenegrin army into NATO is pointless from a military point of view. It has about 2.000 people, and 1,3 million will be allocated from the 5 billion dollar budget for the Alliance. But, on the other hand, this step is important on a political and strategic level. With it, NATO demonstrates that it still adheres to the "open door" policy in principle, regardless of the protests from Russia. Strategically speaking, with the accession of a small state, the entire Adriatic coast is in the hands of the Western alliance. The Bay of Kotor was traditionally an important Austro-Hungarian port for the military fleet, which was also the case during the later Yugoslavia. Except for Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, all other Balkan countries are now members of NATO. NATO-led security forces are stationed in Kosovo.
Moscow opposed Montenegro's membership in NATO until the last moment and supported the internal political opposition in its resistance. At the same time, the resentment of a part of the population, based on the bombings of 1999, benefited the Russians. During the war in Kosovo, Montenegro, together with Serbia, was the target of NATO intervention. Andrija Mandić, president of the opposition Democratic Front, warned before accession that Montenegro was gambling with "three hundred years of friendship" with Russia. Compared to Ukraine or the Middle East, the Balkans are only a secondary field for strategic games for Russia.
But Moscow, of course, uses the open fields, which the stalling of the EU expansion process in the Balkans enables.
A strange coup attempt
It is unclear whether this includes an attempted coup, which allegedly took place on election day in October. A group of armed Serbs, so the story goes, was supposed to capture the seat of the Montenegrin government under Russian leadership and kill the winner of the elections, Milo Đukanović. The State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica seems to believe in this adventurous scenario and is conducting an appropriate investigation. At the moment, it cannot be fully determined whether there really was any coup attempt and whether the government in Moscow was involved in it. In the opposition circles of Montenegro, it is said that this is all staged to maintain the power of the political elite, which has continuously dominated the country for 25 years.
It is headed by Milo Đukanović, a pioneer of managed democracy in the Balkans. He has been managing the country's destiny since 1991, in various positions: sometimes as prime minister, sometimes as president, and now as head of the ruling party. He matured politically under Milošević, got out of his shadow after the war in Bosnia and strove to separate from the union with Serbia. This made him an ally of the West. His extended family, thanks to the networking of the state and business, became extremely rich. Since 2012, Podgorica has been conducting accession negotiations with the European Union.
(Neue Zuercher Zeitung/NZZ)
Translation: Mirko VULETIĆ
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