MONTENEGRO: In the Shadow of the Volcano (ICG Balkans Report N° 89)
MONTENEGRO: In the Shadow of the Volcano (ICG Balkans Report N° 89)

Author(s): Author Not Specified
Subject(s): Governance, Government/Political systems, Wars in Jugoslavia
Published by: ICG International Crisis Group
Keywords: Milo Djukanovic;
Summary/Abstract: Montenegro has been a crisis-in-waiting for two years now, with Belgrade opposing efforts by a reform-minded government under President Milo Djukanovic to distance itself ever further from its federal partner Serbia. Federal President Slobodan Milosevic has steadily escalated the pressure against Djukanovic, probing the extent of NATO support for Montenegro and pushing the Montenegrins toward a misstep that might undermine their international backing. Djukanovic is under some domestic pressure to move faster towards holding a referendum, but all his foreign contacts are advising him to go carefully and not provoke Belgrade into a response, and for the moment he is being patient. For its part, the Belgrade regime seems content for now to play a cat-and-mouse game with the Montenegrin government and population, keeping them nervous and not knowing what to expect. Montenegro’s dualcurrency system—with both Deutschmarks and dinars as legal tender—appears to have stabilised the economy at the cost of unwelcome if temporary inflation, but Serbia has intensified its trade and financial blockade.

• Details
• Contents