Friday, June 09, 2006

Montenegro Progress

I've been following the development of Montenegro's independence. It's fascinating watching the progress, which is generally civil and agreeable, in an area that's about as war-torn as you can get in Europe. Serbia declared independence (which seems an odd way to put it) and also laid claim to the continued statehood, which basically means that Serbia is the state that was Serbia & Montenegro, and Montenegro is a new state. The EU has said that it might be possible to reach a "stability and association agreement" in 2006, which would be the first step for Montenegro to join. The EU is likely to recognise Montenegro's statehood as a block, rather than as individual countries, although Iceland recognised it yesterday.

There doesn't seem to be any information available yet as to what changes in form of government Montenegro will have, if any. It almost goes without saying that it will be something democratic, but there are many forms to choose from. The Head of State (currently President Filip Vujanovic) could continue as a president of some kind, or possibly a monarch - there is an existing royal house, which has not given up the claim. At present, the existing parliament and prime minister, Milo Djukanovic, are in control. Djukanovic, according to the BBC article linked above, "is still under investigation in Italy for cigarette smuggling."

Obviously, there are still differing views within Montenegro - with the margin having been so slim in the referendum, that's inevitable.

1 Comments:

At Tuesday, December 05, 2006 6:17:00 a.m., Anonymous Anonymous said...

hey -- i'm writing a paper on montenegro's economic progress. since you find it so fascinating do you have any interesting sites/info that may be of help?

 

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