A big man for Montenegro

It takes a big man to admit that they were wrong. Doug Muir is a big man. Two years ago Doug was arguing that independence for Montenegro was a bad idea, but this past week he has recanted that heresy and now admits that maybe it wasn’t as much of a bad idea as he originally thought. Certainly his admission is slightly grudging - pointing out that Montenegrin government is still “corrupt, inbred, intolerant of criticism, and deeply linked with regional criminal elites” is clearly not unqualified support. Doug, I salute you!

However I think he is fair to point out that there’s still time for things to go wrong. If the tourism continues to dry up, the construction boom will be over; if global recession takes hold, the garment trade is going to go down the toilet. If the economy in general tanks, then dissatisfaction means that Serb and Albanian nationalism will both start to grow - which means that political class will find it increasingly hard to keep the boat from rocking. Suddenly Montenegro won’t look so appealling, investment will start to dry up and it could turn into a long spiral down.

I hope that doesn’t happen, personally. One thing I’m sure of; no matter what happens in Montenegro, Podgorica is never going to be a nice place.