Milatovic: We need to work on regional cooperation as long as EU is our goal

PODGORICA - Montenegro's President-elect Jakov Milatovic said on Tuesday his country's potential membership in the Open Balkan initiative needed to be discussed by the next government in Podgorica, to be elected by a new Montenegrin parliament.

"My political stance on that is very clear. Even before I became a minister in the Government of Montenegro, a politician and president of Montenegro, I worked very much in the professional sense on advancement of regional economic integration in the Western Balkans, including at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, where I was employed," Milatovic told Tanjug in an exclusive interview.

He recalled that outgoing President Milo Djukanovic had attended the initial meetings that had led to the establishment of Open Balkan.

"Meanwhile, he changed his political narrative on Open Balkan," Milatovic said, adding that regional economic integration was an inseparable part of European integration.

"As long as Montenegro's full EU membership is our goal, we must work simultaneously on everything that has to do with advancement of regional economic cooperation," Milatovic said.

When asked about a visit to Belgrade and ways in which he wished to boost Montenegro's relations with Serbia, Milatovic noted that he had announced that his first visit as president would be a trip to Brussels, from where he said he would send a strong message of Montenegro's true European path.

"As far as good-neighbourly relations are concerned, what is more normal than us in the Western Balkans having the best possible relations? Unfortunately, that is not how things have been, but it seems to me that the victory over Djukanovic gives all of us the hope that we will embark on a new era of additional stabilisation of good-neighbourly relations in Western Balkan countries, because that is exactly what the citizens expect from Montenegro and from us," Milatovic said.

There has been enough friction, and a European future of the Western Balkans is "what awaits us all," he said.

"Regional economic integration - be it what is already in place through the CEFTA agreement, what is underway under the umbrella of the Berlin Process or what has been launched by Western Balkan countries themselves, like Open Balkan - as well as everything that is beneficial to citizens and businesses in our countries, is something that needs to be supported and also worked on actively," Milatovic said.