The Cabinet of Prime Minister of Kosovo Ramush Haradinaj has announced that Prime Minister Marković, upon an invitation of Haradinaj, will visit on February 6th. During Marković’s stay, the ongoing issue of border demarcation with Montenegro will most likely be discussed. Although an agreement between the two parts would imply visa liberalization, Kosovo has not confirmed yet its intentions in ratifying it.
Montenegro’s PPCG 2018-2020, according to the State Secretary of the Ministry of European Affairs Marina Vujačić, is a strategic document that enables a faster and more operational coordination of the activities in the process of european integration and adhesion. Given the importance of this document to speed up the process, maximum efforts were made to provide a full, comprehensive, concise, and analytical overview of the obligations the Government must fulfill.
EU will present the “Credible Enlargement Perspective for the Western Balkans” on February 6th. The document will concern guidelines to boost the process of integration of Western Balkans countries, and in particular of Montenegro and Serbia. 2019 will be a crucial year for the normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo, according to this paper, and for the negotiations of the chapters 23 and 24 for Serbia in the EU path.
The state administration of Montenegro registers between 50000 and 60000 employees, 40000 of which, according to Branko Radulović (DF- Democratic Front), are identified as being surplus. This excess is estimated to cost €450 million. According to Dragutin Papović, member of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), instead, the state administration should be evaluated positively given that Montenegro is the leading state in the Western Balkans in the process of EU integration.
NATO Director of Defense Planning Paul Savereux has praised Montenegro for the progress it has made in contributing to the achievement of the common goals established for collective security. The Director for Montenegrin Defense Policy, Ivica Ivanović, has reiterated how Montenegro’s membership works as an incentive for other states in the region to carry out the necessary reforms in the path of integration within NATO Alliance.
A high-ranking official of Russia’s ruling United Russia, Sergei Zheleznyak, said that Kosovo Serb politicians should block the ratification of the Agreement on border demarcation with Montenegro, local media report referring to Russian newspaper Pravda.Sergei Zheleznyak in an article published on the United Russia website wrote that Kosovo Serb MPs should thwart the adoption of an agreement on the border demarcation between Kosovo and Montenegro. Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj said recently the solution of the border demarcation should be sent to the International Court of Arbitration “because there are no votes that support current version of the agreement in the Assembly”. Montenegro Prime Minister Dusko Markovic and Foreign Minister Srdjan Darmanovic insist that current version on border delineation signed between the two countries in 2015 is a done deal for Montenegro.
Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, accompanied by Vice Premier for Economic Affairs Koco Angjusev, Economy Minister Kreshnik Bekteshi and Education Minister Renata Trenevska-Deskoska, met late Thursday in Podgorica with Montenegro Prime the Minister Dusko Markovic. Zaev and Markovic said after the meeting that Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina have made another step forward in regional cooperation by accepting PM Zaev’s initiative over introduction of flight Skopje-Podgorica-Sarajevo, the Government said in a press release. According to him, this flight would enable fresh economic perspectives, cooperation in the fields of tourism, culture, sport, education, as well as citizens’ daily lives.PM Markovic also confirmed Montenegro’s interest in solving this issue, adding that countries have no open issues, which enables the relations’ development.He stressed that Montenegro supports Macedonia’s NATO accession, which it highly deserves.The PMs agreed that intensive cooperation in the region opens the countries’ Euro-Atlantic perspective.
In an interview with the Vienna-based newspaper Der Standard Albanian PM Edi Rama has criticized the European Union for conditioning Pristina with demarcation of the border with Montenegro in order to be given visa liberalization, while at the same time it has started negotiations with Serbia.It’s not far that the EU is negotiating the accession of Montenegro and Serbia without doing the same with Albania.Rama – who champions union with Kosovo, unless no Western Balkan country joins the EU – claims fears about ‘the unification of Albania and Kosovo’ are not increasing.As regards Albanians in Macedonia, Rama calls it ‘natural’ that the country’s officials of the Albanian political parties after the parliamentary elections have asked Tirana for an opinion about their moves in view of the formation of the government. Commenting on the enlargement process, he said it is becoming increasingly unfair and less predictable for the countries.
Prime Minister Duško Marković made a guest appearence on Radio of Montenegro’s talk-show “Responsible Response”. He had the chance to say that Montenegro has successfully completed integration into NATO in the past ten months and it’s approaching to European Union strongly and the Government has successfully consolidated finances, talking about Montenegro’s economy grew by 3.2% in Q1 and 5.1% in Q2. He added that World Bank is supporting internal reforms and Government wants to make economy even stronger until 2020. Dealing with opposition, he said that the opposition’s behaviour is undemocratic and irrational: the elections have been free and democratic, so there is no need from them not to recognize them. He also added that there won’t be negotiantions about the borders on Kosovo. Dealing with the other Balkan states as well, he said that relations with Croatia are really good, even if there are some problems about the sea border.
Prime Minister of Montenegro Duško Marković met today with the leadership of the Municipality of Rožaje – the Mayor Ejup Nurković and the Speaker of the Municipal Parliament Husein Kurtagić. The Prime Minister said today that one of the most important priorities of Government is to develope the Northern region. Government, as he said, wants to cooperate with local governement in order to make life standards better and improve employment and business enviroment. Municipality’s managemen gave some ideas to Prime Minister in this regard and the Mayor of Rožaje added that make industries stronger will be a great opportunity of develope for all the area. The Finance Secretary of the Municipality of Rožaje Armin Mujević was there as well.