By Andrej Nikolaidis, CdM columnist
Montenegro and Albania are like Del Boy and Rodney of EU enlargement — the story has endless episodes, something always goes wrong, and it never ends. Plus, every season is entertaining, full of hope and laughter — like driving from Budva to Tivat through a landscape that looks like Gaza, while Minister Gorcevic is on the radio explaining how, like Usain Bolt racing a retirement home relay team, we’re catching up to and overtaking all European standards. Everything in Montenegro is so good, so advanced, and so European that the EU will decide to admit us retroactively — in 2028, they’ll admit us as of 2021.
Back to the European–Montenegrin–Albanian “Only Fools and Horses” — in every season, Del Boy repeats the same line: “This time next year, we’ll be in the EU.”
I don’t know, but I’d guess that while Spajic and Rama were in London, they didn’t visit Peckham — the home turf of “Only Fools and Horses” — to pay homage to the most Balkan-like characters in European art history. What we do know for sure is that the two of them bickered.
Rama’s sense of humour is like those buildings he painted to look like Teletubbies back when he was mayor of Tirana: he loves it — everyone else rolls their eyes.
As for Spajic, we can only hope he’ll show the same sharpness he showed toward Rama the next time Aleksandar Vucic decides to humiliate Montenegro. For a start, he’ll have a chance to show his resolve by removing the roadblock to the EU path that Vucic set up for him in Zeta. As the common folk would say: Hic Botunum, hic salta.
Anyway, we had a nice little gossip session this morning — but that’s not why we got together.
Prime Minister Spajic, during his visit to London, expressed disagreement with the idea of Montenegro joining the EU under an asymmetric model — in other words, that we’d be admitted but without the right to vote on European matters. https://www.cdm.me/politika/spajic-protiv-modela-clanstva-u-eu-bez-glasa-suverenitet-veoma-bitan-crnogorcima/
Now, let’s be honest: we the fuck know ourselves. Let’s not fool ourselves — we’re joining the EU precisely because we can’t manage our own affairs properly, hoping they’ll do it better. If we can’t make decent decisions for ourselves, why should Germany or France have to depend on us?
In the best of all possible worlds — in some alternative reality — Spajic is right. In principle, if you give up part of your sovereignty, you deserve respect and a voice in return. In principle, if someone invites you to the table and tells you that you can eat only after the big ones finish their meal, from whatever scraps are left — that’s humiliation. But it’s also humiliating when someone has to give you money to finish a school, a hospital, or a road because you can’t build it yourself. It’s humiliating when, every three years, someone tells you that you’ll join the EU in three years. It’s humiliating when your politics — if not dictated — are heavily “adjusted” according to the instructions, advice, and hints from the embassies of major countries.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and no such thing as free money. You can’t prove your pride by taking five euros for lunch and then, when the person tells you, “Don’t waste it on booze — buy some burek (*a classic Balkan pastry)”, you send them to hell and proclaim that how you spend their money is a matter of your sovereign will.
And beyond all that… less Brussels means more Belgrade and Moscow. The paradox is this: in Montenegro’s case, less sovereignty actually means more sovereignty.
To explain — for Montenegro, any form of EU accession is better than no accession. The alternative to joining the EU isn’t sovereignty; it’s exposure to the expansionist project of our northern neighbour. Not joining the EU, therefore, means less sovereignty in the long run.
If we take EU membership off the table, what’s left? We’re left with security services infiltrated by Serbia’s BIA; an extraterritorial Serbian Orthodox Church that operates beyond Montenegrin law — as the Pavle Djurisic monument case clearly shows; we’re left with revisionist, necrophilic celebrations; with the constant reopening of identity conflicts. We’re left with the ongoing orgy of all the regressive, servile politics of the ruling elites, united in one goal — to strip Montenegro of as much sovereignty as possible.
It’s simple. Either the EU or the ball of vampires.
(Columnists’ opinions and views do not necessarily reflect those of CdM’s editorial staff)
