PODGORICA, 4 Apr: Montenegro\u2019s president-elect Jakov Milatovic is pledging to speed up the small country\u2019s bid for membership to the European Union and to adhere to the bloc\u2019s policy line toward Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, Milatovic says he will advocate for stronger ties with Serbia and other Balkan neighbors.
\n\u201cOne of the key foreign policy priorities for Monte-negro, as well as myself as the new president of the country, will be to speed up the country\u2019s EU accession so that Montenegro hopef-ully becomes the next EU member within the next five years of my mandate,\u201d Mila-tovic told The Associated Press in an interview on Monday.
\nThe president-elect\u2019s commitment to EU membership appears to belie widespread accusa-tions by pro-Western groups in Montenegro and in Serbia that he is a puppet of the pro-Russian leadership in Belgrade.
\nMilatovic, a 36-year-old Western-educated economics expert, won the presidential runoff election in Montenegro on Sunday, defeating pro-Western incu-mbent Milo Djukanovic who has been in power for more than three decades in the small NATO member nation.
\nA political novice who was backed by Montenegro\u2019s governing majority that included pro-Serb and pro-Russian groups, Milatovic won around 60% of votes in Sunday\u2019s poll, according to independent pollsters. Djukanovic has conceded defeat. Official results are expected later this week.
\nMilatovic said that the key reasons for Djukanovic\u2019s defeat were his long-held grip on power along with allegations of rampant corruption throughout his rule. \u201cThis is why we like to say we defeated one of the last dictators in Europe,\u201d Milatovic said. \u201cThis is why I truly believe that the victory yesterday in this tiny Balkan state is also a big European victory, a victory of European values.\u201d
\nThis was Djukanovic\u2019s first loss in an election since he first entered politics in the former Yugoslav republic in the early 1990s. During his decades in power, the 61-year-old switched from a pro-Serbian communist to a pro-Western politician. He had served as the country\u2019s president twice and as a prime minister seven times. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PODGORICA, 4 Apr: Montenegro\u2019s president-elect Jakov Milatovic is pledging to speed up the small country\u2019s bid for membership to the European Union and to adhere to the bloc\u2019s policy line toward Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, Milatovic says he will advocate for stronger ties with Serbia and other Balkan neighbors. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-214280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}