Why Montenegro?

Montenegro's Prime Minister Milojko Spajic and Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban (Photo: Sandor Csudai)

Hungary has always supported EU membership for all former Yugoslav republics, but the case of Montenegro (originally: "Crna Gora" Serbian for black mountain ) still needs some explanation. Not because there is anything in particular about the small state’s internal or external situation that needs explaining, but rather because Brussels is favoring Ukraine, while remaining completely silent when it comes to countries where Serbs ready to integrate are living.

Because fundamentally, that’s what this is really about: Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia are being denied EU membership because Brussels fears the creeping threat of Russia. The fear that the traditionally strong Russian ties of Belgrade, Podgorica or Banja Luka will erode the nation-less, family-less phalanstery that is void of real men and women, but flooded with migrants. Which, of course, is nonsense, but to be frank, intelligence hasn't been a strong point of EU decision-makers of late. In reality, with Montenegro— to narrow our focus—the EU practices the same delaying, false-promising policy as with the others they do not actually want in the community.

Yet Montenegro has been a candidate for fifteen years, uses the euro, trades by sea, is building a rule-of-law state, and is essentially no different from Romania or Bulgaria (and in many societal, economic, and public spheres, is even more “European” than the other two). However, Montenegro's entry is blocked by the very same people who would gladly yank the Ukrainian mafia-state in through the EU’s back entrance, even by force if necessary.

Ukraine, which currently exists without clear borders, without an independent population, without lawfully elected leadership, and according to the first lesson of an international law class, cannot even be called a state. Moreover, Ukraine is at war, and no one really knows for how long. Ukraine is led by criminals, fortune-seekers on the payroll of the West, who under normal circumstances should not even be allowed to manage a basketball team. Ukraine’s national economy, local governance, electoral system, the provision of basic individual and community rights, minority rights, child protection, prison conditions and the fight against organized crime are all at such a low level that it immediately evokes images of the Middle Ages, and not the European Union. 

Yet Brussels still wants them. Not the small but efficient Montenegro, but Ukraine, which threatens the entire European economy with crisis.

A long-standing lesson of Hungary’s neighborhood policy is that the regional space beyond our immediate neighbors is almost as important to us as the network of relations we build with Romanians, Serbs, and Slovaks. What happens in Warsaw, Prague, Sarajevo, or Podgorica is of primary importance to our country. From the Hunyadis, through the assassination by Gavrilo Princip, to the Yugoslav Wars, we have experienced a thousand times how the most important global decisions affect and seep into Hungary after they occur in our southern neighborhood.

It is therefore vital for us to calm Balkan tensions and to integrate everyone into our common political, economic, defense, and cultural system.

Montenegro is undoubtedly a friend, but for it to become an ally in the EU, not just in NATO, a change of heart in Brussels is needed. However—as mentioned—real Europeans would rather vote for Montenegro instead of Ukraine -mired in the mud of war-, if only because for a decade and a half we have sent Montenegro no meaningful message other than: “wait patiently.” This is not a bargaining position; it is a disgrace. Even if the jackals are howling something else at the moment.