By Milo Đukanović*
Former President of Montenegro,
The situation in the Western Balkans in 2024 is, in my opinion, much worse than 10 years ago.
In 2014, we had enthusiasm after the war. It was the period after the war in the former Yugoslavia.
Then we had the European enthusiasm.
I think that the majority of the opinion in all our countries in the Western Balkans wanted EU integration.
All countries, except Serbia, sought NATO integration.
And we had a dynamic process of approaching our European and Atlantic objectives.
Today, a very passionate nationalism is brought back. We have had reforms that have been neglected.
I think that nothing serious has been done in the field of reforms in the 6 countries of the region, and we have values that are already different in our countries.
Not all of these values are European.
And if we take into account the incidents that are happening and that have happened, we still have the problem of stability in our region.
A starting point for the negative problems in the Balkan region is the geo-political situation.
I was in political life at the beginning of the 90s, hence, I can clearly see the differences between the causes of destabilization at that time and nowadays.
As for the fact that there have been major changes in the geo-political scene in that period in Europe and despite the fact that they have contributed to many hesitations in Europe and in the former Yugoslavia, I think, and I don’t think I’m mistaken, and there were people who have been with me in these processes from the former Yugoslavia, who have experienced the war which has resulted in more than 130 thousand victims, it seems that today the cause of the problems is the geo-political concerns.
What we see in the Western Balkans is a reflection of these geo-political changes.
I would like to focus your attention on two points.
Firstly, there was a hesitation and then a total paralysis of the European Union’s enlargement policy.
This was a very big mistake.
By doing this, the EU left a free space for the penetration of anti-European interests in the Western Balkans.
Only those who are totally ignorant can be surprised that Russia used this space.
If you give them a space, they will fill that space. There is no vacuum in geo-politics.
If you are not there, those who are not wanted will fill this space.
Therefore, we had a very big intervention from Russia, very strong intervention, which caused a concern, or a very big shock in the countries of the Western Balkans.
One can say that even if it were not for this behavior of the EU, towards the countries of the Western Balkans, we would still have Russia’s offensive against Ukraine, and this happened in 2014 against Crimea and all of Ukraine.
I agree with this argument, but if we had a responsible enlargement policy from the EU, then the situation in the region today would be much better, and the region would be more stable, more resistant to the malignant policies of Russia against the Western Balkans.
Remember in 2003, we had the Thessaloniki Summit on the countries of the Western Balkans and their perspective towards the EU, when it was proposed that we should define the objective, the goal, that all the countries of the Western Balkans would become members of the EU.
Thus, it was a responsible acceptance of all the challenges that we would encounter in this process.
If there was a more conscious enlargement on the part of the EU, most of the countries in our region would be members of the EU.
And we must accept these challenges. These were obvious. I believe that even in 2010, we considered that Russia was changing course, and the “honeymoon” between the US and Russia was ending, and there was a sharp turn on the part of Russia.
They said that the liberal ideology has cost Russia a lot and must be replaced with the nationalist ideology, and they explained very clearly that this will not be done at the table, but will be done in the battle of the war.
We all could understand and see the signs, and everyone understood that the Western Balkans is a traditional, sensitive, vulnerable, fragile territory, where Russia plays with geo-politics.
This situation led to the destruction of the value system in the Western Balkans. I remember the conversation I had with the leaders of the countries of the Western Balkans.
It was a format where we gathered together, it was organized by a high representative of the EU, Mr. Borrel, three Presidents, three Prime Ministers came there from the Western Balkans.
We talked about this topic often and at a certain point I received a very clear confirmation of my assumptions from two participants in this conversation.
It was the President of Serbia and the Prime Minister of North Macedonia.
Both said the same thing, that the situation or public opinion in their respective countries is getting worse, it’s worse and worse based on all public opinion polls.
Only 34% were in favor of joining the EU and the former President of North Macedonia said that the one who will advocate for European integration will lose the next elections in this country.
If we add here the fact that Bosnia-Herzegovina, in a desperate way, is not functional, and there is no movement, between the negotiations between Prishtina and Belgrade, they have not yet made any progress, as far as European integration is concerned.
This shows that there is a serious destruction of the value system in the countries of the Western Balkans.
This has also happened to Montenegro.
We have had structural changes in the reforms.
Unfortunately, this has led to the situation that Montenegro, which was previously a model in the entire region, a member of NATO and the first in the negotiation of membership chapters with the EU, is now on a dead end.
The situation in Montenegro, in the last four years, shows that there is no lack of a clear objective to move forward with the main chapters, fundamental for the opening of negotiations.
This result is a consequence of the EU’s political will to send a message.
And the message is that the expansion process is alive.
The rule of law in Montenegro is at a lower level than it was years ago.
A few years ago, the violation of the Constitution could not be imagined.
Violation of laws by state bodies in a systematic way could not be imagined.
This is now happening in Montenegro on a daily basis.
It happens that new laws are adopted without a prior consent of the EC.
The international community dictates and has a very weak influence, especially when it comes to the fight against corruption and organized crime.
The fight against organized crime is important, but no one pays attention to the rule of law.
Not only in Montenegro, but also our partners do not pay much attention to this thing, and this is the second dimension and the third dimension that I wanted to talk about.
I will repeat, I am not surprised by the policy of Russia and I am not surprised by the policy of the countries that support Russia in the Western Balkans.
They use the politics of the historical narrative and as a chance, to restore great nationalism in the region, we see all these false alternatives being offered.
It starts from the thesis that democracy can be mixed and we should have ethnically homogeneous countries due to the specifics of the Western Balkans.
We have had this experience, which always leads to war and it always leads to war.
I am not surprised, and I will say it again, that Moscow and Belgrade agree with this thesis.
But what surprises me more, is that with intention or without intention, this policy in its foundations receives support and space from Western partners, and I have spoken about this several times.
I agree with the criticism in Mr. Meta’s introductory speech. It is very difficult to explain why this is happening.
We must have vibrant democratic processes in our countries, and try to go to the situation where we will have to have responsible national Governments, to start working on something that we have decided that we want to do.
And what we decided 30 years ago is the path to democracy, democratic regime, EU and NATO membership.
*Speech of former President of Montenegro, Mr. Milo Đukanović at the Regional Forum “The Balkans and the geopolitical challenges of today and the future.”
/Argumentum.al
