Cleaning Up in Montenegro

BBC Radio 4’s Crossing Continents went out last Thursday, on the subject of the Mediterranean coastline. I was interviewed for the programme by Julian Pettifer, as one of a group of expats, although tragically I didn’t make the final cut. This is a shame because I was witty and insightful - in fact if they’d kept me in, the programme would probably have had more listeners. Please feel free to write and tell them this.

The programme asked whether the Mediterranean can be saved from mass tourism. You can already see the BBC baggage that question is carrying - the environmental and social impact of “mass tourism” have been a cause of concern for the middle class, as well as basis for ridiculing the working class, since its very beginnings. The article that accompanies the broadcast ends with the question “Is the only salvation for the Med to go up-market?” without a trace of irony.

People who know me only slightly already know that I’m hardly oblivious to environmental issues, but this strikes me as being a faintly idiotic question to ask. In the case of Montenegro, tourism offers one of its few sources of income, income that’s needed to pay for environmental protection and improvement. The only salvation for the Med (in the case of Montenegro) is fairly consistent investment in the country, and if going “up-market” is the way to do it, then that’s great.

But if mass tourism is also the way to do it, then it’s hard to deny Montenegro the chance to build its economy and give people some holiday pleasure at the same time. Everybody here, locals and expats alike, is concerned about the impact of tourism, and we all wonder how the situation is going to develop - perhaps none more so than our local billionaire benefactor, Peter Munk. Munk has sunk a lot of his money into a scheme to develop Tivat Marina (or rather, the old Navy base next to Tivat Marina) into the biggest inland sea marina on the Med - a high rollers’ paradise.

Everything I’ve heard tells me that Munk is serious about his investment, and not just in terms of getting a return on his money. He’s also interested in the social and environmental development of the country, but the BBC can’t help themselves, asking “is this massive foreign investment really in the interests of the Montegrin environment and people?” The short answer is yes, since the alternative is presumably very little or no foreign investment.

Of course Montenegro is plagued by problems of corruption and lawlessness which are touched on in the programme, and which confuse these discussions. It’s hard to make the case that “Montenegro” needs to make its own choices when in reality the government isn’t particularly responsive to the wishes of the people, and it’s also hard to make the case when the people themselves are clearly going to go for the quick buck. The large number of locals complaining about the foreign invasion while driving brand-new sports cars after selling a plot of land that’s been in their family for 200 years is testament to that.

Anyway, the programme is quite an interesting pop comparison between Montenegro (will it go the same way as Spain?) and Spain (can it recapture the peasant charm that Montenegro still has?). The question of what is the “real Mediterranean” (and who owns it) also links thematically to an interesting post at A Fistful of Euros which discusses cultural uniformity in Europe, if that’s your thing (note: for some reason, that link is broken, but you’ll find it on their main site).

You can listen to the BBC broadcast here and read the accompanying article here.