Montenegro and Croatia: Morinj, Boka Bay and the EU Path
DNP deputy leader Maja Vukicevic says Croatian demands are slowing Podgorica down, while MEP Roman Jakic puts the blame on Montenegro's government.
The dispute between Podgorica and Zagreb over the terms of Montenegro’s EU membership shows how a bilateral account with a neighbor that is already in the Union can end up inside the accession process itself, an experience that Serbia, as a candidate, is watching closely. Maja Vukicevic, deputy leader of the Democratic People’s Party (DNP), said on October 18 that she regards some of Croatia’s demands as obstruction of Montenegro’s path to Brussels, while Slovenian MEP Roman Jakic blames the Montenegrin government for the lack of talks.
What does Vukicevic see as obstruction?
In recent years the DNP voted for laws required by the negotiations and was part of the executive, and Vukicevic draws from that a right to criticize. She said Chapter 21 is closed and Montenegro is preparing to close Chapter 14, which covers transport, but that this chapter is, in her words, burdened by Croatian demands.
She singles out four issues:
- compensation for former detainees of the Morinj camp
- property
- territory at sea at the entrance to the Bay of Kotor
- renaming a swimming pool in Kotor
Her general position fit into one sentence: “A country’s membership in the European Union should not be a tool for imposing solutions in bilateral disputes.”
Morinj and Lora: the same yardstick
Vukicevic does not dispute that Morinj should be discussed, but she wants the same yardstick applied to Montenegrin citizens who suffered in the Lora camp in Croatia. She is calling on the government to raise that issue officially.
“Unlike Morinj, where nobody died in the camp itself, Montenegrin citizens gave their lives in the Lora camp, and their families have still not seen justice. Respecting all victims means equal standards and a readiness to discuss responsibility without selectivity,” Vukicevic said.
She also said that responsibility for the abuse of detainees must not be relativized and that “every claim for compensation must have a clear legal and factual basis”.
The Kotor pool and the entrance to the bay
She also criticized recent amendments to the Law on Sports, which opened the way to renaming the pool in Kotor. The pool carries the name of water polo player Zoran Dzimi Gopcevic, a winner of Olympic, world and European medals.
“A decision that touches the memory of Gopcevic and his legacy requires a clear explanation, above all because Gopcevic was never accused of committing any crime during his lifetime,” Vukicevic said. She added that the way the law was amended is inappropriate and that, as she put it, it met Croatian demands.
The gravest claim concerns the sea. “And while part of the public insists on looking for brakes on the European path in other countries, it is Croatia that demands from Montenegro financial compensation, property and territory at sea that covers the entrance to the Bay of Kotor,” she said. An overview of eight Croatian demands published in Montenegrin media mentions the training ship Jadran, the delimitation at Prevlaka and compensation for victims of war crimes.
What does Jakic say?
Roman Jakic, a former Slovenian defense minister, told the Podgorica daily Pobjeda that there are no talks between the two governments and that the fault lies on the Montenegrin side.
“I do not see that dialogue between the Montenegrin and Croatian authorities, and the blame for this situation lies on the Montenegrin side,” Jakic said.
He recalled that in December 2023 Croatia sent Podgorica a non-paper listing open issues, which, by his account, the Montenegrin authorities refused to answer. He called the resolution on Jasenovac, adopted in July 2024, “a poke in Croatia’s eye”. He also says Zagreb reacted stoically and that this is precisely why Montenegro is further along in the negotiations today. He declined to go into detail on ownership of the ship Jadran, but said everything can be resolved through dialogue.
Jakic went a step further into Montenegrin domestic politics: in his view, a government formed after the 2027 elections without the parties led by Andrija Mandic and Milan Knezevic would find a common language with Zagreb more easily.
EU Council conclusions and the vanished deadline
The background is an earlier decision of the EU Council. According to Montenegrin media, at Zagreb’s insistence a provision to provisionally close the chapters by the end of the year was removed from the draft conclusions. Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic confirmed that Croatia took part in changing the text and that the conclusions sent Podgorica a message to start bilateral talks. We have already written about that change, in our piece on Plenkovic’s demand that Montenegro be left without a deadline.
On the Croatian side, only Plenkovic speaks in these statements. The only recent Croatian position we found is an RTCG headline from October 17, according to which Grlic Radman says Croatia remains a strong advocate of Montenegro’s EU membership. No response to Vukicevic’s claims is available from the sources we found.
