Montenegro and Serbia show themselves as ambassadors

Montenegro and Serbia have declared that the ambassador of the other country is an undesirable person. Diplomats must leave their respective country of residence, as announced by the foreign ministries of Podgorica and Belgrade.

Montenegro started: the small Balkan country expelled the Serbian ambassador Vladimir Bozovic. The diplomat interfered in the host country’s internal affairs and thus violated international law, the Montenegrin foreign ministry said. The last time Bozovic made public statements was the legally questionable unification of Montenegro with Serbia in 1918 as a “liberation” and an “act of free will”.

Serbia responded a few hours later. In the course of the reciprocity, Belgrade declared the Montenegrin ambassador Tarzan Milosevic undesirable and expelled him from the country.

Both states are candidates for EU membership, so they should effectively seek peaceful ways to resolve disputes, beyond diplomatic escalations.

Opposition alliance to conquer Montenegro

The transfer of the government to Podgorica took place four days before its replacement. Next Wednesday, parliament will vote on a new government backed by a broad opposition alliance.

In Montenegro, President Milo Djukanovic has ruled in various functions for nearly 30 years. He led the small Balkan country to independence from Serbia in 2006 and to NATO in 2017. In August, his ruling party, the DPS, lost the parliamentary elections.

The dominant force in the new ruling coalition is the pro-Serbian and pro-Russian Democratic Front (DF). The smaller allies are pro-Western, but they want to break Djukanovic’s former omnipotence like the DF. In the coalition negotiations it was agreed that NATO membership and the EU accession process should not be called into question.

Djukanovic has always worked during his presidency to strengthen a Montenegrin identity. Serbia, on the other hand, repeatedly attempts to drag the country into its sphere of influence. Through the Serbian Orthodox Church, diplomats and media interventions, Belgrade spreads the national concept of the “Serbian world”, which ethnic Serbs outside Serbia seek to co-opt. In the 2011 census, 29 percent of Montenegrin citizens identified themselves as Serbs.