Plenkovic Strips Montenegro Deadline From EU Conclusions

Montenegro, a neighbor and the most advanced candidate for European Union membership, left the European Council summit without the deadline meant to speed up its negotiations. At the request of Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, the deadlines for closing negotiating chapters were removed from the conclusions on Montenegro. According to the Montenegrin opposition, Belgrade was dragged into the dispute as well.

What was removed from the conclusions?

An earlier draft of the conclusions envisaged an agreement on provisionally closing all chapters by the end of this year, along with the earliest possible completion of the accession treaty. The final text contains neither. In it, the European Council only backs work on drafting Montenegro’s accession treaty, as well as the intention of the Irish presidency of the Council of the EU to continue work on provisionally closing chapters, provided Montenegro carries out the relevant reforms.

The change was reported by Montenegro’s public broadcaster RTCG, citing Croatian media, with the claim that the time frames were dropped after Plenkovic’s intervention. During the enlargement debate, Plenkovic presented the leaders of the member states with eight Croatian demands that Podgorica must meet to win Zagreb’s support for completing the talks. Six concern Chapter 23, judiciary and fundamental rights, and two concern Chapter 31, foreign, security and defense policy.

The two sources differ on who received the document. RTCG says Croatia sent it this week to the member states and to the offices of the European Commission president and the European Council president. Euronews, relaying the portal Index.hr, writes that the list of eight disputed points was sent to Podgorica.

Plenkovic: I am not under pressure from anyone

Euronews, citing four officials who it says are directly familiar with the situation, reported that Berlin is increasing pressure on Zagreb to settle the open issues with Podgorica without delaying accession. Plenkovic rejected that in Brussels:

“Chancellor Merz did not speak at all. We deny what Euronews writes. I think those are reflections of some conversations on the margins of this meeting, at the level of state secretaries, which was 2, 3 days ago. I have been here 10 years, I am not under pressure from anyone, on any topic. On the contrary, many countries are understanding and, in the end, Croatia has shown what it means to be constructive”

The Croatian prime minister added that Croatia has supported Montenegro’s accession talks since 2012 and agreed to provisionally close 21 chapters, but that it has repeatedly set out the expectations that must be met. He explained to reporters what he expects from Podgorica:

“The talks at this moment were led by ministers Ibrahimovic and Grlic Radman. We want those talks to continue, to resolve those few open issues which we consider to be very much solvable from Montenegro’s point of view.”

Euronews also recorded his statement from Thursday, before the summit began: “In the last two years there has been no progress at all”. The same outlet writes that the disputes mostly concern the legacy of the wars of the 1990s, meaning property claims and unresolved border questions, and that Croatia names a war crimes investigation and compensation for victims as conditions. According to the same text, Zagreb is accused of activating the disputes at the last minute, while it replies that these are long-standing problems and that the demands are symbolic in nature.

What does Euronews say about pressure from Europe?

According to that report, Germany recently offered mediation as well, but the offer has not yet been taken up. EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Kaja Kallas said on the margins of the summit that bilateral issues must not block the accession process. France, Euronews writes, wants to avoid enlargement problems because of its domestic political situation, while Luxembourg criticizes the use of the accession process to settle disputes between countries.

Montenegro is aiming for membership by 2028 as the 28th member and would be the first country to enter the Union under the new enlargement methodology. A stall, Euronews warns, could affect Albania, Moldova and Ukraine. EU officials, according to that text, fear that the mood toward enlargement could change if Montenegro’s entry is not completed soon, since elections will be held next year in several key member states, France among them.

DPS: the government is producing damage

The opposition Democratic Party of Socialists called the removal of the deadlines bad news and accused the ruling majority. In a statement, it says relations between Podgorica and Zagreb became complicated after the adoption of the Resolution on Jasenovac, which it claims was “ordered” in Belgrade. It goes on:

“We are witnessing that for months now there has been no movement in the talks with Zagreb, because Prime Minister Milojko Spajic, who promised his Croatian counterpart a great deal, probably expects that someone else will finish this job in his place, which negatively affects Montenegro’s European path.”

The DPS named as additional problems the attempt to schedule a session of the Kotor assembly on renaming the city swimming pool and the majority’s decision not to back the dismissal of Parliament Speaker Andrija Mandic. It ended with the message that the doors of the European Union cannot be open while Mandic heads the Montenegrin parliament, whom it calls persona non grata in Croatia. The government’s response was not given in the sources we used.

We have written before about earlier Croatian demands toward Montenegro, among them Morinj, the ship “Jadran” and the border. After this change, the open question is how long the talks will run without a date: the final text ties support for continued work to reforms, not to a calendar.