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Ten to Eight – How Dritan brought bonds price down

You are reading a daily contextual review of the news that marked the previous day.

By Ljubomir Filipović, CdM observer

While the Deputy Prime Minister was a guest at Petar Komnenić’s talk-show, where during the breaks from laughter, Mr Komnenić asked a couple of difficult questions about how bad the former government was, someone joked on Twitter last night: “Whenever Dritan speaks English, the prices of Montenegrin bonds fall”. Mr Abazović‘s tirade about the Chinese debt in Brussels has started a wave of reactions throughout Europe.

This is certainly not because of the genius of his speech, but because of the fact that some could hardly wait to criticize the EU for what they say is its hypocritical attitude towards the Balkans, enlargement, but also the Chinese influence. Mr Abazović gave his speech before the EU parliamentarians, some of whom, let’s not forget, would be happiest if the EU didn’t exist, and some of whom are in opposition in the EU. He probably didn’t know where or why he was saying that. If he wanted to achieve something, he should have talked to his colleagues from the Commission, and leave the Parliament and political messages to our parliamentarians.

Immediately after his visit, a bunch of pundits, journalists and ad hoc experts and trend experts, who have been building their careers on Chinese influence for the last 2 years, started a showdown with the EU, to which the Financial Times and the BBC got hooked. They achieved the effect and used some Balkan leader there to prove that “the EU is not working” and that “it is not so bad that Britain left the Union”.

The fact that the consequence of his mess brought down bond prices and that he added another burden to the Montenegrin economy doesn’t worry him. Importantly, he had 3 minutes of fame on the BBC for which his colleagues made a false announcement with bad Photoshop.

Who is to blame and in what way for the fall in bond prices, was honestly admitted by the Government MP Nebojša Medojević, who stressed that the reason for this is the Government’s decision to ask for help in Brussels to repay the debt to the Chinese.

On citizenship and residence

While Messrs. Sekulović and Abazović act as if we were small-minded and say that no one intends to change the law on citizenship, even though the Prime Minister was the first to announce it, we better be careful that these 2 guys don’t start beating us. Yesterday, clips from the Vijesti TV’s Reflektor talk-show appeared on Twitter, in which Minister Sekulović shouted at Mr Dragan Koprivica from the CDT.

He addresses him with “here he goes again”, tells him “you know how much … (I care, probably)” and rolls his eyes at his arguments, and generally behaves arrogantly throughout the interview. It was painful to watch it all. If a government official treated a civil activist in the past in such a way, the noise would be raised until the reaction of the State Department and the European Commission.

At the conference organized yesterday by CGA and 21. Maj Civic Initiative, which was attended by representatives of the Montenegrin diaspora, lawyer Nikola Martinović and Bojan Bugarin, it was said that the main motive for changing the law was changing the demographic picture in Montenegro.

On protests

Messrs. Abazović and Krivokapić accused Mr Veselin Veljović of being behind the organization of the protest, and the Prosecutor’s Office began investigating their allegations. Mr Abazović announced the inspection of the property of Mr Veljović and his colleagues, which he indicated were behind the protest. Messrs. Abazović and Krivokapić are deceiving the public, because most of the people who gathered did it spontaneously.

With this story about Mr Veljović, they want to discourage people from taking to the streets. If they don’t want people on the streets, let them not provoke by using Serbian nationalist policies in the Government.

No one took to the streets to protest against the arrest and the fight against crime and corruption, but because of the politics and stories of Ms Vesna Bratić, Ms Jelena Borovinić Bojović, Mr Leposavić, Mr Krivokapić, and the yelling of Messrs. Abazović and Sekulović. By arrogant behavior, you will only provoke the anger and reaction of Montenegrins, Bosniaks, Albanians, Croats and others who you have excluded from the decision-making process in this country.

Miscellaneous

It would turn out that servicing the debts of Montenegro Airlines would be a little cheaper than establishing ToMontenegro or whatever name it gets, although Minister Spajić said that the cost would be “€0”. The Government is allocating another €3m for the new company, which has already settled in expensive business premises. This is the most important thing.

The media in the region are buzzing about the alleged Janez Janša’s non-paper about changing the borders in order to satisfy the ethno-territorial ambitions of Croatia, Serbia and Albania. Miraculously, on the map that was published, Montenegro remains intact.

The DF begs Bishop Joanikije to reconcile the quarreling Government officials. It seems that the Serbian church is still the only cohesive factor of the new majority.

That’s it for today. See you again on Monday. We wish you a pleasant weekend.

 

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