EU Should Not Turn a Blind Eye to Montenegro’s Bloody Clan War

When Montenegro declared independence in 2006, it identified EU and NATO integration as its strategic priorities. The country applied for EU membership in 2008, accession negotiations began in 2012, and NATO membership followed in 2017. Yet, beneath the language of democratisation and Europeanisation lies a far less reassuring reality: a country where rival organised crime clans have waged a conflict for more than a decade, with dozens of people murdered, including innocent bystanders – and where allegations of links between criminal groups, police officers, and senior judicial figures have repeatedly surfaced The question is not merely why Montenegro has struggled to defeat organised crime. It is why this conflict appears to have become increasingly peripheral to the European Union’s public assessment of the country. The origins of Montenegro’s interclan war are generally traced to a dispute involving the disappearance of almost 200 kilograms of cocaine in Valencia, Spain, in 2014. What followed was a violent confrontation between two criminal groups based in the coastal town of Kotor – the Kavac and Skaljari clans. Most of the country’s organised crime groups eventually aligned themselves with one of the two rival groups. Kotor itself became a symbol of the problem. The UNESCO World Heritage Site and historic home of both clans was described by then Interior Minister Goran Danilovic as a “hostage town.” Investigations subsequently alleged the existence of surveillance networks used by criminal gangs and the disclosure of confidential police information to members of the Kavac clan. Subscribe to Balkan Insight Premium to read the full article. Please login to your account below if you are already a Premium Subscriber. Buy Premium Subscription Our Premium Service gives you full access to all content published on BalkanInsight.com, including analyses, investigations, comments, interviews and more. Choose your subscription today and get unparalleled in-depth coverage of the Southern and Eastern Europe. Buy Premium Subscription If you have trouble logging in or any other questions regarding you account, please contact us