Montenegro

It is a great pleasure for me, on behalf of the people of Montenegro, to address the General Assembly today, just as it is always a pleasure to feel the cosmopolitan spirit of the annual high-level week at the United Nations. At the outset, I would like to wish success to the new President of the General Assembly, Mr. Csaba Korosi, and say that I hope that his term will be very successful. The world staggers from one crisis to the next, from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic to yet another war, and today we are all concerned. Montenegro’s position on the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine is that we stand with the people of Ukraine and strongly oppose the aggression, which is an attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of that country. War is not the solution. Aggression is not the solution. Bombs are not the solution. We come from a part of the world that knows well the cost of humanitarian and refugee crises stemming from ethnic conflict and the uselessness of raising armies against one another. That is not the solution. In the twenty-first century, humankind should be smarter than that. We should not use war to resolve political problems. That is not a solution. We should sit together and engage in dialogue to consider the different political options. States must find a way to engage in dialogue. I know that that is not easy, but war is not the solution. We will continue to support Ukraine. We will do so permanently. Our agenda is to follow European Union (EU) foreign policy to the letter, including sanctions against the Russia Federation. It is not a question of economics; it is a question of principles and standards. Today we have an aggression against Ukraine; tomorrow some other State could be attacked. We need to find other solutions. War has created a lot of problems. In Montenegro, we have around 10,000 Ukrainian refugees. For many of the countries represented in this Hall, that is not a huge number, but for Montenegro, a small country, it is almost to 2 per cent of the population. As Montenegro’s Prime Minister, I am very proud to say that everyone in Montenegro feels very comfortable and very safe. We will continue to open the door for people in trouble. We will not say that they are not welcome. They are welcome. And with our relatively small capacity, we will support everything that upholds democratic standards and solidarity with our fellow human beings. War produces a great many problems. At this very moment, however, we are facing another crisis — an energy crisis — which may lead us to experience a very problematic winter in Europe. We should understand one simple thing: today’s energy crisis will become tomorrow’s economic crisis, which will then, in turn, become a security crisis the day after tomorrow. If we do not find a solution together with EU countries, we will be facing some very big problems. Why are we facing an energy crisis? It is not only because of war. There are two factors that are driving the world’s current energy crisis, especially in Europe. The first factor is the war in Ukraine, which is making a mess of the energy markets, triggering an increase in the price of every kind of energy, including electricity. The second factor is climate change. Today in Europe, we have rivers that are at their lowest levels. We have lakes that are also at their lowest levels. And it is at the United Nations that we must engage in solving this problem for the future. We are therefore experiencing an energy crisis, but it is not just because of the war. War is a key factor, but it is a secondary factor. The main factor is climate change. We need to protect the environment for future generations. I want to talk about the environment because I come from a State that, in its Constitution, is dedicated to being an ecological State. We are the only State in the world whose Constitution declares it to be an ecological State, and I am more than sure that constitutions in future will be written with ecological provisions designed to protect the environment. We want to build our country as a green destination. I am very proud to say that we can still drink water from rivers in the north of my country. It is crucial that we protect nature, undertake green projects, find solutions to the problem of pollution and everything else that destroys nature. I agree with those who say that we need to take greater care. This is not a question for one country alone. We need to act with unity and solidarity in this, or we will worsen the problem. Green projects and the protection of the environment are items high on Montenegro’s agenda. We hope that together with other countries we will find a productive and sustainable solution for the future. Another important issue for us is transitional justice, which has been with us in the Western Balkans for many years. Members know that we had a major conflict in the past, and that, since the dissolution of Yugoslavia, there has been a great deal of fighting over ethnic and religious problems. Today we are trying to build a modern European society, but we cannot do that if we are still dealing with transitional justice. There are two types of peace: positive peace and negative peace. Negative peace is when there is absence of conflict, but institutions are weak, politicized, unprofessional and controlled by corrupt leaders. That is negative peace. We want to see more positive peace in the region. Positive peace stems from independent institutions, an independent judiciary and efforts to fight against organized crime and corruption, especially corrupt leaders who promote nationalism and conflict in the region because they want to maintain the regional status quo and foreclose the possibility of new leaders coming to power to make changes in the country or in the region. Positive peace is something what we want to fight for. It is the way that we can end the period of transitional justice. It is how we can look at and deal with what happened in the past. Without pursuing that, we will not have the truth, and without truth we will not have reconciliation. Our country is in this Hall to promote reconciliation. Our country is in this Hall to shake hands with representatives of every country in the world that seeks to be grounded in universal principles. The people of Montenegro want justice. I believe that the people of many countries represented in this Hall want to see more justice globally and more justice locally. We are very proud of our very inclusive multicultural society. It is true that our country has had problems, but we try to solve them in the right way. Everyone is more than welcome in Montenegro. We need to move forward by promoting, just as members of the Human Rights Council do, human rights everywhere, inclusive open societies, for the sake of every nation, ethnicity, religion, and individual. We are proud of our diversity. We promote diversity. Diversity is good for every society. It is good to see the cosmopolitan spirit in New York these days. We want to have that kind of society. We want to promote more media freedom. We want to condemn people who are against media freedom. In our country, we are still investigating the killing of some well-known journalists that took place 20 years ago. We are not proud of that. We want to have institutions that can fix the problem and punish people who attack the media. Media freedom is an important part of democracy. In our country we should do more about that. We should promote freedom of media and every kind of every kind of freedom. I am very proud of the Government of Montenegro’s in fighting organized crime and promoting justice in this most recent period. Why do I mention this now? I do so because it is not only Montenegro’s problem. I refer in this regard to high-level corruption, namely, cigarette smuggling and cocaine smuggling. Some 20 per cent of all cigarettes smuggled in EU countries go through Montenegro. We are the country which, in the last six months, seized 149,000 cartons of cigarettes, worth more than $120 million on the market. That is the biggest action against cigarette smuggling in all of Europe. Last year we undertook a similar action against cocaine smuggling. That cocaine was not sold in Montenegro because Montenegro has 600,000 people; it is cocaine for sale in Western Europe. These results show very clearly the Government’s orientation as well as that of the State and the people of Montenegro: we no longer wish to have organized crime or corruption in our country. We are ready to commit to that, and we invite the General Assembly and the rest of the United Nations, as well as other partners, to support us, because it is a transnational problem. It is not the problem of only one country. We will continue these efforts with our international partners and with States that provide us with a lot of information. But it is important to understand that behind nationalism in the region hides corruption. Again, behind nationalism in the Western Balkans lies corruption. Fighting against corruption will fight nationalism. The less corruption there is, the less nationalism there will be; the less corruption there is, the less tension there will be. With less corruption, we can focus on the economy and on progress. With current levels of corruption, our attention will always be focused on the past. We cannot change the past. The only thing we can change is the future. Our common strategy should be to change the future in the right way. With regard to Montenegro’s foreign policy, I would like to underline two very important points. We are full members of NATO. We made a very good decision in 2017 to join NATO. Now, in a period of crisis, when we see that such countries as Sweden and Finland are joining NATO, everybody in Montenegro understands why our joining was so important. Another one of our goals — and this is bigger than NATO membership — is to join the EU. We want to be part of the big European family. For small countries like Montenegro, it is very important to be in the democratic countries club. We want to be the next member of the EU. We are dedicated to doing everything we must do to find the solution to joining the EU as soon as possible. The Western Balkans should not be the black hole of Europe. The Western Balkans can make great contributions to Europe and to the world, with its culture, diversity, people — with everything they have to offer And it is very important to understand that we are not alone. I am more than sure that we are not alone, but we need first to finish with our internal Montenegrin issues, and we are really ready to do that. It is very important for us to have regional cooperation and for us to support regional initiatives. All regional initiatives that bring greater focus on the economy and on progress are welcome in our country. We want to see people who had problems with each other in the past to sit together and discuss these projects. We are really proud to be the positive case in the region. We are the country that builds bridges between other countries. We continue to be ready to play that role in the coming period. We want to see how Serbia and Kosovo find common agreement. We want to see how our neighbour Bosnia and Herzegovina finds internal agreement with itself. We want to see all of its six States of the Balkans form a productive Balkans region. Every inclusive initiative is more than welcome for our country. We cannot feel comfortable if we are successful and our neighbours are not. We want to be successful together. We want to see every single country — not just in the region, but in the world — succeed. This is the politics of a small country called Montenegro. We want to promote peace. Our wish is to promote peace. Our wish is to promote stability and progress. I think that the opportunity afforded us in these five or six days in New York is the future. We understand that deglobalization — a concept that got its start a few years ago — is not sustainable. Every problem of every country can very easily be the problem of another country. That is why we should talk, why we should find solutions together, why we need to promote more unity everywhere. In our country, the world will always find a partner for good initiatives. For everything that brings peace, progress and stability, we are ready to participate. We will be found in the General Assembly with every country in the world that wishes to promote the same values. We need to promote more ethics in global politics and less populism. We need to promote more concrete action and less rhetoric. We need to promote more justice and less support for authoritarian regimes around the globe. Our duty is to give our best so that democracy may survive. Democracy should be more functional, and we should stick together. A globalized world is like a village. Nobody can say that this is not important for me personally. We are in this Hall to discuss and understand that everyone is important. The size of the population of a country or the territory of a country is irrelevant. Everyone is important. Every voice is important. We need to advocate democracy. We need to advocate universal values. This is how we can make the world a better place for all of us. I am grateful for this opportunity to address the General Assembly, and on behalf of the people of Montenegro, I wish all members the greatest success in each of their countries.