I believe that Putin is angry because the coup attempted in Montenegro in 2016 failed and because Montenegro joined NATO. My impression is, that another Russian attack elsewhere on the Balkans would be the very last means since other tactics also failed. It would be nice if Russia had to offer something else beside natural gas, but, unfortunately, that’s not the case, said in the interview for “Pobjeda” Michael Haltzel, Senior Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations of John Hopkins University.
Montenegro joined NATO and hopefully, it will soon become the EU member. Journalist asked him if he believed we can expect EU enlargement in the near future.
“If by “near future” you mean less than 5 years then my answer is no. Unless highly developed countries such as Switzerland or Norway apply for membership. But chances that will happen are the merest. I invite my friends in Montenegro to be patient. Your country has already made huge steps forward in relation to NATO accession. Keep going with reforms and you’ll enter the EU by the middle of the next decade”, says Haltzel.
According to him, we can expect that Russia will try to repeat the scenario from 2016.
Why economic Balkans isn’t visible in the USA?
“There are some significant american investments in Balkans, but there could be more of them. I’m not a businessman and I won’t guess what are the shortcomings of the investment potentials. Some countries are more stable than others. Corruption rules in many of them and we always come back to the fact that radical reforms are necessary”, says Haltzel.
