Stable and corruption-free democratic institutions are the starting point of economic development

Minister of Economic Development Jakov Milatović spoke at the panel "Time for Change: Europe at the Crossroads" within the 30th Economic Forum in Poland.

Direction of the national states was faster. However, I think that European Union as a sort of a collective body has consolidated also quite quickly and from its consolidation on it moved all the moves adequately. Montenegro benfited from it as well. It was one of the countries outside of the EU which got vaccine through the EU support, although we have chosen to have vaccines from all over the world. So, this is why the Government had achieved to get vaccines from Russia, from China, from the USA and from the EU. So, we had an options for the citizens basically to choose, because back then having a vaccine was like having a diamond and nobody was really asking wheather the vaccine was coming from Russia, from the USA, or from China. The only important thing was to vaccinate as many people as we can in order to get a sort of a collective immunity. I would like to go back to the role of the state. It is logical that the role of the state increased because the state was there to vaccinate people. The state was there to provide public health to the people. The state was there to provide unemployment benefits to the people. So, it was by default the result of the crisis that the role of the state emerged as more visible. However, I think that it’s really in Central and Eastern European countries where we usually kind of question the role of the state. Nobody is really questioning whether the UK has now a larger role of the state. Because ultimately what it matters is a transparent, efficient and non-corruputed reaction and that’s really what it matters. For that cause, we need to have stable institutions, democratic institutions, checks and balances and that’s basically the basis and that’s I think what people also want to have, especially in such uncertain times like those that we are currently living in, the Minister said.