Montenegro has taken steps to resolve a series of disputes with neighbouring Croatia that threaten to derail its ambition of becoming the EU’s 28th member by 2028.
Last week, Zagreb circulated an eight-point list of grievances to other EU countries, setting out the issues it wants resolved before Montenegro can join the bloc. Most stem from the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
“There are issues which we have signalled to our Montenegrin neighbours for years [...] In the last two years, there has been no progress whatsoever,” Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said at the margins of the European Council on Thursday, adding that his country has been “extremely constructive” in the accession talks with Montenegro.
Just last week, however, Montenegro’s parliament passed legislation protecting historical sites, a move intended to address Croatia’s demand that a memorial plaque commemorating Croatian victims of the Morinj detention camp, operated by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), remain untouched.
Another grievance concerns a municipal swimming pool in Kotor, which the local assembly named after Zoran Gopčević, a water polo player who allegedly served as a guard shift commander at Morinj.
Montenegro has now passed a second law prohibiting sports facilities from being named after people who died less than 40 years ago. As the law applies retroactively, it would require the removal of Gopčević’s name from the pool. He died in 2000.
More contentious is Zagreb’s request that Montenegro help locate the remains of 14 victims of the wars that spread across the Balkans as the former Yugoslavia collapsed. The Croatian nationals did not die on Montenegrin territory, and the archive that might hold the information is in Belgrade, now the capital of Serbia.
Both Montenegro and Croatia have asked Serbia for access to the archive. Zagreb, however, wants information that can be obtained without it, as there are conflicting interpretations of where the victims were taken and where they might be found.
Croatia is also seeking compensation for Croatian families unlawfully deprived of their property. The two countries have agreed on the amount, but negotiations continue over the wording of the agreement.
For Zagreb, Montenegro’s recent moves are a welcome start, but the measures must be fully implemented before the disputes can be considered settled. Croatia wants to avoid any outstanding issues when Montenegro’s accession treaty comes up for ratification.
The Croatian government also faces domestic pressure to demonstrate that it is defending national interests over the unresolved legacy of the Yugoslav wars, or risk criticism from opposition parties.
That sensitivity was evident at last week’s EU summit, when Croatia insisted on removing a reference from the summit conclusions to plans to provisionally close all of Montenegro’s accession negotiating chapters by the end of this year.
Another unresolved issue is the border between the two countries, one of several territorial disputes inherited from the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Croatia wants Montenegro to abandon the possibility of arbitration over their land border, where only around 200 metres remain disputed, and concentrate instead on resolving their maritime boundary.
The border dispute is not expected to block enlargement. Croatia itself still has an open dispute with Slovenia, which did not stop it joining the bloc in 2013.
According to one EU diplomat, Croatia has always kept bilateral disputes on a separate track, avoiding blocking progress at the technical level and linking the issues to specific negotiating chapters.
Montenegro, meanwhile, has kept a low profile, working discreetly towards a solution through bilateral dialogue, the diplomat said. However, the diplomat added that there could have been stronger condemnation across the political spectrum of parliament speaker Andrija Mandić’s condolences to the son of war criminal Ratko Mladić.
Germany has also stepped into the dispute, pressing Croatia to reach a swift settlement rather than jeopardise Montenegro’s accession.
Berlin fears that allowing bilateral grievances to hold up the process could have wider repercussions for other countries seeking EU membership.
“Montenegro has fulfilled all the requirements. There are meetings to draw up the final treaty. There are still a few smaller bilateral issues, which have also been presented by Mr Plenković, but all of them can be solved,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said at the press conference after the European Council.