Independence of Montenegro

In a referendum held on May 21, 2006, 55.5 percent of Montenegrins (just over the necessary threshold of 55 percent) voted to end the federation of Serbia and Montenegro. On June 3, 2006, Montenegro declared its independence, which was recognized by the Serbian parliament two days later.

The principal feature of the first years of independence was the economic boom of 2006–08, with growth rates exceeding 6 percent each year. The boom was followed, however, by a contraction of roughly the same percentage in 2009. Sharp declines in European bank credit, real estate sales (to Russians in particular), and direct foreign investment—factors that had been partly responsible for the boom—accounted for the economic retreat.

Both contributing to the boom and also easing its end in the midst of a broader international financial crisis was the unchanged political dominance of the Democratic Party of Socialists. Its leader, Ðjukanović, who had been serving as prime minister at the time of independence, had stepped down in November 2006 but returned to the post in February 2008. He then led the party, as part of the Coalition for a European Montenegro, to victory in the parliamentary elections of March 2009. Subsequently, in consultation with the International Monetary Fund, the government and Montenegro’s central bank worked to restart the flow of bank credit, keep unemployment from rising, and reduce both the current-account and state budget deficits.

In the meantime, the successful conclusion of Montenegro’s Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union (EU) was marked by the lifting in late 2009 of the restrictive visa requirements for Montenegrins traveling to the Schengen zone, which included most EU member states. (See Schengen Agreement.) Montenegro’s recognition of Kosovo’s independence in 2008 troubled relations with Serbia, however, and the status of Serbs within Montenegro remained unsettled. Continuing controversy over whether Montenegrin constituted a language separate from Serbian added to the disquiet. (See also Serbo-Croatian language.) For the government that matter was settled in 2010 when it published a Montenegrin grammatical code and declared Montenegrin the official language of the country’s broadcasting and education systems.

Montenegro’s relations with the rest of southeastern Europe were promising, but reviving economic growth in the face of fiscal austerity remained a major domestic challenge for the country. As part of Montenegro’s continuing efforts to join NATO, in March 2010 a contingent of Montenegrin soldiers was dispatched to Afghanistan as part of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. In November the European Commission recognized Montenegro’s sustained progress in meeting EU membership goals when it recommended the country for candidate status. Ðjukanović resigned as prime minister the following month, but he remained head of the DPS and continued to exert a strong influence on Montenegrin politics. Ðjukanović’s finance minister, Igor Luksic, succeeded him as prime minister, and Luksic continued his predecessor’s efforts to achieve greater integration with the rest of Europe and with the West.

Luksic presided over a modest economic recovery that stalled in early 2012 as foreign direct investment—one of the chief engines of financial growth in Montenegro—dried up in the wake of the euro-zone crisis. In spite of the economic downturn, a small measure of optimism was restored in June when Montenegro began formal accession talks with the EU. The ruling DPS-led coalition claimed the largest share of seats in parliamentary elections held on October 14, 2012, but strong showings by opposition and ethnic-minority parties prevented the DPS from obtaining an outright majority. The DPS was able to forge a coalition with the support of several minor parties, and Ðjukanović returned as prime minister to form a new government in December. In April 2013 Filip Vujanović of the DPS was reelected president in polling that the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) characterized as “professionally and efficiently administered.” Nevertheless, opposition parties claimed fraud and initially refused to recognize the result. The economy began to recover in 2014, and the European Commission concluded that Montenegro had made considerable progress toward EU membership.

In December 2015 Montenegro was invited to become the 29th member of NATO, a move that was strongly opposed by Russia, and a wave of antigovernment protests in September and October of that year were widely seen to have been orchestrated by Moscow. Demonstrators called for Ðjukanović’s resignation, but an ultimatum delivered by opposition pro-Russian legislators backfired, and police dispersed the protest camp that had been established. The threat of violence marred parliamentary elections on October 16, 2016, when 20 people, including the former commander of Serbia’s special forces unit, were arrested by Montenegrin police for suspected terror offenses. The election had been widely seen as a choice between closer ties with the EU or Russia, and the pro-Western Ðjukanović decried the plot as an attempt by Russia to influence the election. This proved to be a massive understatement, as Montenegrin authorities and Western intelligence agencies later revealed that the foiled operation was nothing less than an attempted coup, allegedly with Russian backing, that was to have included the assassination of Ðjukanović.

As in 2012, Ðjukanović’s DPS captured the most votes in the election, but they failed to gain a clear majority, and 10 days later Ðjukanović—who had held power as either president or prime minister for most of the previous 25 years—resigned. He was succeeded by Duško Marković, who assembled a governing coalition and was elected prime minister on November 28, 2016. On June 5, 2017, Montenegro formally became a member of NATO, the first expansion of that alliance since 2009. As NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg oversaw the hoisting of the Montenegrin flag over NATO headquarters in Brussels, Russia claimed that it reserved the right to take “retaliatory measures” against Montenegro’s “hostile course.”