Spajić: Unacceptable for the Opposition to Block the European Path Because of Mandić

Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajić called it unacceptable to condition the country’s European path on the initiative to dismiss parliament speaker Andrija Mandić, urging the opposition to take part at full capacity in the closing phase of EU integration.

The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) announced it will not cooperate with the government and the parliamentary majority, including on European integration, until parliament considers its initiative to dismiss parliament speaker Andrija Mandić.

Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajić, in a statement for Television of Montenegro (RTCG), called the political conditioning of the country’s European path unacceptable. “Everyone is dismissible, including me personally. But you cannot get angry when this does not get a majority response. That for this reason — because some initiative or idea of yours did not gain majority support — you now blackmail Montenegro’s European path and become an obstacle, I do not support that,” Spajić said, as Portal Analitika reports.

He said the opposition has not always supported European laws and assessed that it should be 100 percent committed to Montenegro’s EU entry. “We cannot be European only in words, we must also be in deeds,” the prime minister added.

Regarding government stability after the DNP’s exit from power and the demands of the Albanian Forum, Spajić said the government is stable and that the government’s response to political blackmail will be the same — blackmail is unacceptable. But he stressed the government will carefully consider legitimate demands concerning the rights of various groups of citizens — Albanians, Montenegrins, Serbs, Bosniaks, Croats, Roma or others: “Neither is the government a magic lamp, nor am I Aladdin to fulfill the wishes of every politician in this country.”