Abazović at 2BS Forum: Montenegro will be the first next EU member

Montenegro must accept to be part of the modern world. It does not occur to us to sacrifice Montenegro and its European path for the office. We all need to change, we need to change our behavioural patterns and realise that we cannot just advocate democratic standards by using words, we need to show that in action, said Deputy Prime Minister Dritan Abazović at the 11th 2BS Forum organised by the Atlantic Council of Montenegro.

Abazović said that he would like the train that is taking us to the European Union to have many more passengers than it has had so far.

Montenegro has most problems with Chapters 23 and 24, which rely on the rule of law, and the security sector is trying to deliver results. However, we the executive branch of power cannot deliver what should be delivered by the prosecution service.

Abazović stressed that countries that do not have a long democratic tradition and have not had space to develop their political culture in a way how things shoud develop at least in the political theory, should not treat what's going on in Montenegro now as something unexpected.

It is not possible to change the system immediately when we changed the government on 30 August for the first time since the introduction of parliamentarism. It is very important that we had this without conflicts, without major turbulences that are likely in these situations.

Commenting on the current political situation, Abazović said that he doesn’t like the fact that no one is talking about Government's programme, people are talking about the number of ministries, emphasising that this is what separates responsible politics from scoring cheap political points.

Montenegro has no time to waste. I think that our message is very clear - political agendas that are not in line with Montenegro's national interests cannot be implemented over us or using us for such purposes.