Montenegro finally gets new government and PM

Montenegro’s parliament voted in a new government on Tuesday, following weeks of negotiations and nearly five months after the country went to the polls.

The small Balkan country will be led by a coalition of pro-European, pro-Serb and Albanian minority parties, helmed by former finance minister and ex-Goldman Sachs banker Milojko Spajić, who leads the centrist Europe Now Movement. At 36, he is the youngest prime minister in Europe.

“Our vision is Montenegro as the Switzerland of the Balkans and the Singapore of Europe”, Spajić told parliament ahead of the vote.

He pitched his government’s main foreign policy priorities as joining the EU, continued membership in NATO, and improving Montenegro’s relations with its neighbors and participation in multilateral organizations.

The country declared independence from Serbia in 2006, began negotiations to join the EU in 2012 and joined NATO in 2017. It adopted the euro as its currency in 2002.

In recent years, Montenegro was rocked by widespread anti-government and religious freedom protests. In April, the country’s leader of over three decades, Milo Đukanović, was defeated in a watershed presidential election.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is set to meet with Spajić and President Jakov Milatović on Tuesday as part of a four-day tour of the Western Balkans.

Speaking in North Macedonia on Monday, von der Leyen announced a €6 billion euro investment package for countries in the region seeking to join the EU, conditioned on reforms.