Montenegro's EU accession in danger: Croatia demands billions

Montenegro's EU accession in danger: Croatia demands billions Few weeks before the planned conclusion of the EU accession negotiations, the EU candidate country Montenegro faces a blockade by the neighboring country Croatia. Some negotiation chapters would be "closed too quickly," said Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman recently during a visit to Montenegro. There, he also put extensive demands regarding earlier Yugoslav military assets on the table, reports the Croatian news agency Hina. Observers recognized this as a thinly veiled threat of veto from the Croatian chief diplomat. Croatia had been held up on its own path to the EU for almost a year by its northern neighbor Slovenia, which urged a solution to the dispute over the Adriatic border. A arbitration procedure was subsequently agreed upon with the mediation of the EU, from which Croatia later withdrew. Bilateral disputes between Croatia and Montenegro have been simmering for a long time, including regarding border demarcation in the southern Adriatic. Zagreb also bears responsibility for the siege of the city of Dubrovnik in the early 1990s. Montenegrin and Serbian soldiers shelled the world city together at that time. Furthermore, Croatian war prisoners were interned and mistreated in Montenegro. Zagreb seems to claim hundreds of warships Grlić Radman stated on Thursday at a memorial event in the Morinj camp, where he laid a wreath with his Montenegrin counterpart Ervin Ibrahimović. According to this, Croatia is not only demanding the school ship Jadran from Montenegro but also other military assets. These have a total value of 2.7 billion euros. In May 1990—a few weeks before the Croatian declaration of independence of Yugoslavia—there were 207 ships in Croatia and 30 in Montenegro. "A year later, the situation was reversed—207 in Montenegro, but 30 in Croatia," said Grlić Radman. The Croatian Foreign Minister was apparently referring to ships of the Yugoslav Navy. Croatia and Montenegro were two of the six constituent republics of communist Yugoslavia. Two others—Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia—also have access to the sea, while Serbia and Macedonia were in the interior of the country. The successor states of Yugoslavia agreed on the division of state property in the negotiations in Vienna in 2001, but military assets were excluded from this. This largely went to Serbia, which is also striving for EU membership. The other successor states want to be compensated for this. It is surprising that Croatia is now making demands on Montenegro in this regard. Podgorica sees unprompted demands The Montenegrin Foreign Minister Ibrahimović said on Friday that the demands made by his Croatian counterpart have never been officially communicated. At the same time, he emphasized that this issue should be kept out of the accession negotiations. When he took office four years ago, he found "dozens of open questions" with Croatia on his table. "This topic was not on my table back then, and I still haven't gotten it," said Ibrahimović. In recent years, it has been possible to resolve questions that were "far from a solution at that time," emphasized the Montenegrin Foreign Minister. "We resolve bilateral issues through bilateral contacts, and our accession process should proceed through the implementation of reforms." A bilateral commission will consult on the status of the military facilities for the first time this Friday. The Montenegrin Minister of Defense Dragan Krapović will also participate in the meeting in Zagreb. Both states are members of the NATO defense alliance. Croatia joined the EU in 2013, Montenegro wants to conclude its negotiations before the end of the year and become the 28th EU member in 2028.