rferl.org

Montenegrin PM Signs Basic Agreement With Serbian Orthodox Church

RFE/RL's Balkan Service

74-94 minutes

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The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Porfirije (left), and Montenegrin Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic meet in June.

Montenegrin Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic has signed a basic agreement on relations between the government in Podgorica and the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Abazovic signed the agreement, which covers sensitive relations between the government and the church, after more than four hours of discussions on July 8. Thirteen ministers voted for the adoption of the agreement, five voted against, and three were absent.

Abazovic negotiated the agreement with Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Porfirije. A draft of the agreement was published last week after which the patriarch said the new agreement would mark a "crowning" of the normalization of relations between Montenegro and his church.

Some protests broke out in Podgorica after Abazovic's announcement alongside the Serbian patriarch.

Deputy Prime Minister Rasko Konjevic said on July 8 that, with the adoption of the basic agreement, Abazovic would lose the parliamentary majority that has supported his government so far.

"The contract is not in accordance with the constitution, and the preamble is not in accordance with historical facts," Konjevic said. "I am informing you that the government has lost its legitimacy, and after consultations a request will be submitted to shorten the mandate of the assembly -- that is, to hold extraordinary elections."

He asserted that the text was not properly adopted because 13 votes was not a two-thirds majority of the 21 ministers.

Abazovic disputed Konjevic's statement but said a new vote could be held because three ministers were absent when the vote took place.

The Serbian Orthodox Church has considerable influence in Montenegro and within the ruling coalition. A majority of Montenegrins worship under the auspices of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which has an arm based in Cetinje called the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral.

The basic agreement outlines the obligations of the state and institutions toward the church.

It recognizes Serbian Orthodox subjectivity six centuries further back than the church is afforded in Serbia itself, extends extraterritoriality of religious buildings, opens the possibility of religious teaching in public schools, and gives the church legal status that in some areas is equal to state institutions.

Critics have complained about the criteria it sets for settling registration disputes over property. The church controls hundreds of properties throughout Montenegro.

Montenegro's largest ruling party, the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), and the Social Democrats (SDP) criticized a draft of the basic agreement published on June 28 as overly generous toward the Serbian church.

The basic agreement must now be sent to the Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Belgrade, which must also accept it.

With reporting by Jasna Vukicevic

b92.net

"Danger for the whole of Europe. If Pandora's box opens, it won't be good for anyone"

6-7 minutes

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Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia's Chief, Sergey Naryshkin, assessed that Polish plans to establish control over western Ukraine are dangerous for Europe.

Source: B92 Friday, July 8, 2022 | 17:05

EPA-EFE/ROMAN PILIPEY

As he said, that would open Pandora's box and then it would not be good for anyone.

"It's definitely dangerous. It's dangerous for Ukraine, it's dangerous for all of Europe. The thing is that on the European continent there are quite a few points where neighbors are silently claiming the territory of neighboring countries," Naryshkin told reporters after a meeting with the leadership of the KGB of Belarus.

As reported by Sputnik, according to his words, the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia is carefully monitoring what is happening.

"If Poland opens that Pandora's box, it will not be good for anyone. It is an essential way to make the situation on the European continent even more difficult and, of course, to reduce the level of international security," said Naryshkin.

He warned last week that the Polish leadership is analyzing scenarios for the de facto partition of Ukraine and that the Polish authorities are convinced that the U.S. and Great Britain will be forced to support the plan for the partition of Ukraine.

Naryshkin previously spoke about Poland's attempt to repeat the historic "agreement" after the end of the First World War, when the collective West, embodied in the Entente powers, recognized Warsaw's right to first occupy part of Ukraine to protect the population from the "Bolshevik danger" and then to include those territories in the composition of the Polish state.

Naryshkin also assessed that, after the summit that NATO recently held in Madrid, it became clear that NATO is waging a hybrid war against Russia and Belarus.

"During the NATO summit in Madrid, which was held recently, it can be said that the masks fell off. It is obvious to us that the NATO bloc is waging a hybrid war against both Russia and our ally - Belarus," said Naryshkin.