On Monday 27 February, Montenegro's Foreign Minister Srdjan Darmanović said that the rise in populism throughout the European continent – be it in the Western Balkans or within the EU – was surely the biggest challenge to its unity the EU has come up against since its creation.
"We are concerned about the rise in populism on the continent. We are all in the same boat. This is probably the biggest challenge for the unity of the EU since the start of this great EU project", he told MEPs in the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee. In Darmanović's view, the upcoming elections in certain "very important" countries this year – in the Netherlands, France and Germany, and then in Italy next year – "will have a decisive impact for the idea, the soul and the shape of the European idea, and the result of the elections will be decisive for the whole Union in the near future". While enlargement is often used as an argument against the EU, Darmanović said that the policy of enlargement was "the best means of fighting against populism and the anti-European Union trend". "The Union will become bigger and stronger", he said, adding that if it does not integrate the Western Balkans, Europe will never be stable.
Darmanović also spoke about his country's situation as an EU accession candidate country. Montenegro is the country which is most advanced in EU accession negotiations, with 26 out of 35 chapters open. "The new government will maintain the country's commitment on its full integration into NATO and the EU", he said, adding that these full memberships were a priority in terms of foreign policy. "We are not focusing on the quality of the reform but rather on the speed of its implementation", he added.
He also said that the investigation into the attempted coup in his country was still ongoing. In his opinion, while Serbia and members of NATO helped Montenegro in its attempt to bring those responsible to justice, this was not the case with Russia, which did not want to help in the investigation. Darmanović said his country was caught between several different national interests. "We understand that Russia may not see enlargement to the Balkans as a good thing, but we have our own interests and we have to preserve them", he said. He hoped that once Montenegro was in NATO, "international pressure will diminish and we will more available for other accession processes". (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)