Montenegro pushes for EU membership by 2028

Prime Minister Milojko Spajić gave an interview to the Financial Times in which he said that Montenegro aims to join the European Union by 2028 and announced numerous infrastructure projects expected to be completed by 2030.

In the context of European integration, the Prime Minister stated that Montenegro could progress rapidly. "Our strategy is 28 by 2028," he stated.

The article notes that Montenegro had introduced judicial reforms, increased average wages, restricted cash use in large transactions such as real estate to root out money laundering and was working to counter organised crime.

"The reforms needed to be rewarded soon, otherwise what’s the point of a merit-based approach," the article states, recalling that EU Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi told the FT this month that the Balkan accession bids would be “accelerated”, but that the onus was on them to “prove that they should be in fast”.

The Prime Minister also spoke about past borrowing practices, specifically in the context of loans for highway.

Montenegro has mismanaged big construction projects in the past, such as a 2014 contract for a short stretch of highway that exposed the economy to a $1bn Chinese loan — a quarter of the country’s annual gross domestic product at the time — and used key infrastructure, including important seaports, as collateral.

Podgorica had learned its lesson and reduced that exposure to well below 10 percent of GDP, Spajić said.

The opportunities for investors are numerous, the Prime Minister emphasised, adding that they include big infrastructure projects, such as highways along the Adriatic Sea and towards Serbia, and several airport, seaport and railway upgrades, which Spajić said should be completed by the end of the decade.

Spajić pointed out the need for increased defence spending by NATO member states and said that the message he is getting from the United States is that they want to see more and active participation in NATO by all of us within the alliance.

We agree - everybody should be a constructive and credible partner, the Prime Minister concluded.