What is the Price of Montenegro?

The Montenegrins have recently had to accept the fact that they will host the navy instead of tourists. The fate of St. Stefan, the most exclusive summer resort on the Adriatic coast, has been widely discussed. The news concerning the alleged renting out of this tiny island to Jezdimir Vasiljevic, the boss of "Jugoskandik" bank, has been denied by the Montenegrin Minister of Information Mr. Bozidar Jaredic.

In order to please the public, a possible buy-out of the Montenegrin foreign debt has been mentioned. The debt amounts to some 400 million dollars, and the portion that can be bought totals 300 million dollars.

It would be enough for Jezdimir Vasiljevic to invest 20 million dollars in order to get an 80 million dollar loan, sufficient for servicing the Montenegrin foreign debt, and gaining control over St. Stefan for the next 20 years!

The government declares that they are the only ones with authority to grant possible concessions to run St. Stefan and any other "public" firm; the shareholders were not consulted, nor informed about the intentions of the government experts. Secrecy is also justified by the fact that a large-scale initiative for the denationalization of confiscated property has been staged in Budva. The initiative is led by people who have lost their entire property, and who never actually received any official paper concerning such an act. The new legislation enables them to repossess their property and this is the catch, say our sources in Budva: the government is trying to cash the assets, which according to the law it will not be able to administer any more.