Good morning! The Prime Minister does not know why the Open Balkans is bad; the duel between Markovic and Knezevic failed; Rasko did not vote for Vladimir Pavicevic because he knows something; the local authorities in Herceg Novi ignored the deportation anniversary.
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What is the problem with the Open Balkans?
For days, a part of the Montenegrin public has been arguing against the Open Balkans. President of Montenegro, former ministers and diplomats, intellectuals. Instead of meeting with them, or openly discussing the membership he advocates, the prime minister dismisses their arguments as “invalid.” Abazovic seems to be full of confidence that he has a majority for the decision on membership, but also for the laws that will be adopted as a consequence of membership in this initiative. The majority does not include the DPS and SD, which are now explicitly against the initiative. SDP as well, but not as explicitly as SD and DPS.
Goran Djurovic, a construction tycoon who supported Abazovic and now has become a minister, meets with representatives of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, which finances Serbia’s lobbying efforts in the United States, and discusses the Open Balkans with them. He also confirmed that the Prime Minister will participate in the Open Balkans Summit in Ohrid in early June.
Markovic-Knezevic duel
I expected a lot from the duel between former prime minister and MP Dusko Markovic and DF MP Milan Knezevic. I expected Knezevic to make an incident in his own style, or to present some information, to be fierce and critical of Markovic, but he seems to have blunted the edge. The story was reduced to Knezevic’s concern about whether he would be removed from the position of the member of the parliamentary Defense and Security Committee. Markovic also spoke about the SKY transcripts, the Special State Prosecutor’s Office and wiretapping. You can read about the details of the conversation here.
Vladimir Pavicevic takes care of national security?
Yesterday employments at management and operational positions were carried out again. Advisors and Secretaries of State. Vladimir Pavicevic was not elected as the Prime Minister’s advisor, as announced by Vladislav Dajkovic, but he was elected as Jokovic’s. According to the good old tradition of the SDP, Minister Konjevic abstained from voting, and said that he would announce his reasons for opposing this at the National Security Council session. The question is why there is a need for secrecy and non-transparency. If there are some features in Pavicevic’s biography that are important for the issue of national security, why Konjevic didn’t inform his fellow ministers about them in time, including Ranko Krivokapic, who, as far as I understand, voted for Pavicevic. How long will Montenegrin politicians treat the Montenegrin public as immature children from whom something so important should always be hidden.
Anniversary of the deportation from Herceg Novi
It has been 30 years since the deportation of refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina and the citizens of Herceg Novi of the Islamic faith. The leaders of the Ministry of the Interior and the Police Directorate, Filip Adzic and Zoran Brdjanin, respectively, appeared at the gathering and officially apologized. Sasa Zekovic tweeted about it yesterday, praising the leaders of the security sector and emphasizing the importance of that act. On the other hand, the local council of 21. Maj civic initiative, repeating Zekovic’s positive impressions, criticized the attitude of local authorities towards this issue. Namely, both the mayor and the local parliament speaker have, according to the local 21. May, “continued to ignore issues and events that imply confronting the local community and Montenegrin society with the past”.
That’s it for today. See you again on Monday.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst
