Head of State Jakov Milatovic yesterday, he requested additional talks about four candidates for ambassadors from the political quota, due to the fact that some of them allegedly have dual citizenship and that some of them allegedly do not support the foreign policy course of Montenegro - "Vijesti" unofficially learns.
List was told this after the meeting between Milatović and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Filip Ivanovic on filling the diplomatic network.
Milatović had objections to the candidates for ambassadors in Berlin and Madrid, proposed by the Europe Now Movement (PES), and Athens and Moscow, proposed by the New Serbian Democracy (NSD), that is, the Democratic People's Party (DNP).
According to "Vijesti", the candidate for ambassador to Russia is Miloš Radinović, president of the Society of Russian-Serbian-Montenegrin Friendship "Slovenski Most". He is engaged in private business in Russia. Radinović was nominated for the position of ambassador by the DNP Milan Knežević.
Milatović's cabinet announced yesterday that the president in principle supported the proposals for the appointment of all seven career diplomats, but that he requested "additional consultations" on four of the nine political appointments, "in order to ensure quality filling of the vacant positions that were the subject of the first round of foreign policy consultations ".
"Vijesti" learns that Minister Ivanovic will inform the parties about Milatović's position on the candidates, and that the President expects the Government to present a formal proposal of the list of candidates because "all discussions so far have been informal".
According to "Vijesti" information, formal interviews with candidates from the political quota had not been conducted before MIlatović. However, the candidates supported by the head of state will also have to pass the National Security Agency (ANB) check, including career diplomats.
The Constitution stipulates that the president appoints and dismisses ambassadors at the proposal of the Government and with the opinion of the parliamentary committee responsible for international relations.
Yesterday's "agreement" between these two branches of government on 12 candidates for ambassadors represents a positive step in solving the problem of filling the diplomatic network, which has been going on since the beginning of 2021, during the cohabitation of the government Zdravka Krivokapića and the then president of the state Milo Đukanović.
The first meeting on filling the diplomatic network was held on February 22, when representatives of the Government introduced Milatović to the proposed candidate. "Vijesti" announced that NSD and DNP will propose four names. The two parties agreed that the seats in Beijing, Athens and Belgrade would belong to the NSD, and the DNP in Moscow.
"Vijesti" learned that he is the NSD's candidate for ambassador in Belgrade Nebojsa Djokovic. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Airport of Montenegro since 2021 as a representative of the Democratic Front (the current coalition "For the Future of Montenegro"), and he was also the president of that body.
In his biography it is written that he graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Podgorica and worked as a supervisor in the bank control of the National Bank of Yugoslavia, later the Central Bank of Montenegro. He worked as an internal auditor at Hipotekarna banka and is an adviser on economic issues at the Association of Banks of Montenegro.
According to "Vijesti" information, the Europe Now Movement (PES) proposed Jovan Mirković for ambassador in Washington. Mirković is a full professor at the Faculty of Science and Mathematics in Podgorica. He graduated from the Institute of Mathematics and Physics, Department of Physics in Podgorica. He was on professional training at the Lomonosov University in Moscow at the Department of Low Temperature Physics. He was the president of the Council for Cooperation between Montenegro and Japan and the special representative of the Government of Montenegro in Japan (2004-07). He was also the ambassador of Montenegro to Japan on a non-resident basis during the time of the Government Duško Marković.
Former director of the Post of Montenegro Dragan Tufegdzic (Democrats) is a candidate for ambassador in Ljubljana, and a former minister without a portfolio Zoran Miljanic (CIVIS) for the highest ranking diplomat in Skopje.
Tufegdžić was the director of the Post of Montenegro from April 2021 to June last year. He was a member of the Main Committee of the Democrats, as well as the president of the Club of Councilors of that party in the Bar Municipal Assembly. He resigned from all party positions in June last year, but remained in the party.
Tufegdžić, as "Vijesti" wrote, received a master's degree in marketing management from the Mediterranean University in Podgorica, and a degree in economics from the Megatrend University in Belgrade. He was the executive director of the company Big Factory, and his last engagement was as the director of marketing in the company Geoinfo from Bar, which deals with engineering activities, while at the beginning of his career he worked as a teacher in a high school.
Miljanić is the general secretary of the Citizens' Association CIVIS. During the government of Zdravko Krivokapić, he was the state secretary in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP), and during the government Dritan Abazović minister without portfolio. At that time, CIVIS was a coalition partner of the Civic Movement URA, and in the elections last year, it appeared with PES. Miljanić is a former member of parliament (Pozitivna and Demos), and as written in his biography, he previously worked in the Montenegrin MUP, and was a manager in the criminal police of the MUP of Macedonia.
According to data provided to "Vijesta" in August last year from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Montenegro has ambassadors at only ten addresses in the world, while chargé d'affaires represent it at twice as many.
According to these data, Montenegro had ambassadors in only seven countries - Belgium, Greece, Italy, North Macedonia, Russia, Turkey and France, and in four missions to the EU, UN and other international organizations (Geneva), OSCE and the Council of Europe. In the meantime, the ambassador from North Macedonia was withdrawn.
When it comes to chargé d'affaires, they represent Montenegro in some of the most important global political and financial centers, such as Washington, Beijing, London, Berlin and Abu Dhabi, and they are also found in almost the entire environment - Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo and Slovenia.
At the representative level, the country is also represented in Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Spain, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Argentina...
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