Montenegro finally gets new government and PM

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Montenegro’s parliament voted in a new government on Tuesday, following weeks of negotiations and nearly five months after the country went to the polls, according to POLITICO Europe.

The small Balkan country will be led by a coalition of pro-European, pro-Serb and Albanian minority parties, helmed by former finance minister and ex-Goldman Sachs banker Milojko Spajić, who leads the centrist Europe Now Movement. At 36, he is the youngest prime minister in Europe.

“Our vision is Montenegro as the Switzerland of the Balkans and the Singapore of Europe”, Spajić told parliament ahead of the vote.

He pitched his government’s main foreign policy priorities as joining the EU, continued membership in NATO, and improving Montenegro’s relations with its neighbors and participation in multilateral organizations.

The country declared independence from Serbia in 2006, began negotiations to join the EU in 2012 and joined NATO in 2017. It adopted the euro as its currency in 2002.

In recent years, the country was rocked by widespread anti-government and religious freedom protests. In April, the country’s leader of nearly three decades, Milo Đukanović, was defeated in a watershed presidential election.

World