So Milo Djukanovic is back as Montenegro’s Prime Minister again.
Djukanovic is a damn interesting character. When Yugoslavia broke up, most of the pieces were dominated by guys in their fifties and sixties — Milosevic, Izetbegovic, Tudjman. Hell, Gligorov of Macedonia was a WWII vet in his seventies.
Montenegro was the odd exception. [...]

Montenegro initialed a Stabilization and Association Pact with the EU on March 15. That’s a step on the road to EU candidacy.
Nobody outside the Balkans noticed. Even inside the Balkans, nobody got too excited. Montenegro is a small and rather poor country, and EU membership is still years away. Hell, all [...]

78 days until Eurovision.
This is the season for choosing national entrants. The deadline is March 13; every candidate will have picked an entrant by March 10. Only a few countries have already made their choice. So, over the next three weeks, millions of people in over 30 countries will be choosing their [...]

That’s the clock ticking down the last months of the current Serbian government.
The ruling coalition, never stable, is visibly crumbling. The Socialists — Milosevic’s old party — were supporting it, but they’re split down the middle now, and may bolt over the appointment of a new foreign minister.

[...]

Yugoslavia used to have a hell of a team. They were regular visitors to the World Cup, advancing to the elimination rounds more often than not. They went to the quarter finals in 1990, and there are plenty of Serbs and Croats who will tell you that they actually came within a whisker [...]

It looks like Europe has a new country.
As of 6:00 am this morning, with over 99% of the ballots counted, it appears that the “out” votes have just barely won in Montenegro. Secession from Serbia required a 55% supermajority; the unofficial, not-quite-final count has 55.2% of the voters approving.
Now, in a jurisdiction the size [...]

So Montenegro votes this weekend on secession from Serbia. (Or, to be precise, secession from the dysfunctional and largely notional Federal Union of Serbia and Montenegro.)
Dedicated readers may recall that this vote was the subject of AFOE’s first intra-blog debate a few weeks back. My post on Montenegrin independence can be found here; [...]

Continuing AFOE’s first point-counterpoint debate between two posters, here’s my final post on Montenegrin independence.

Read more… or Read more right here… »

I’ll discuss a few specific points that BG made, then say why I still [...]

Well, we are united in our diversity here at Fistful. I have to say I disagree with almost every point Doug made about Montenegro in his last post, and will respectfully dissect his arguments below. But first off, a plea for some sanity here. Too many people seem to think that the break-up of [...]

So, Montenegro.
Little mountainous state on the Adriatic. Six hundred thousand people, mostly Montenegrins, a few Albanians and whatnot. Was an independent country until 1919, when it got swept up into Yugoslavia. Now it’s part of the “Federal Union of Serbia and Montenegro”, which consists of (1) Serbia, and (2) Montenegro.
And [...]