Milos Rudovic is a correspondent in the Podgorica bureau of RFE/RL's Balkan Service.
Under EU pressure, Podgorica has officially shuttered its contribution to the global buy-a-passport business. But RFE/RL's Balkan Service has learned it's still considering handing out hundreds more "golden passports," which in the past have mostly gone to Russian and Chinese nationals.
Months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Montenegro announced it was joining Western sanctions and later claimed it had frozen the assets of dozens of blacklisted Russian nationals. The move was heralded but turned out later to be largely untrue.
The European Union’s former high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Catherine Ashton, has defended the bloc’s initial response after Russia occupied Crimea in 2014, but acknowledged “we did not know then what we know now.”
Montenegro has signed a memorandum of understanding with China to build a new highway connecting the coastal towns of Budva and Tivat. The project is expected to cost around $59 million and is raising familiar concerns after a previous highway project plunged the country deep into debt.
Longtime Montenegrin leader Milo Djukanovic will face off next month against a candidate nearly half his age after failing to secure a majority in the first round of a presidential election held in the former Yugoslav republic on March 19.
