On 7 and 8 June, a meeting of the Open Balkan initiative will take place in Ohrid, North Macedonia with Montenegro participating in it for the first time.
The initiative sees multiple agreements that facilitate the free movement of people and goods, as well as various trade initiatives throughout the participating countries. Albania, Serbia and North Macedonia are currently members while Kosovo, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina refused to participate due to fears it would impact EU integration.
Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti sent a letter to his Macedonian counterpart Dimitar Kovacevski, stating that Kosovo is engaged in the Berlin Process.
Last week Montenegrin Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic confirmed his country’s participation.
Yesterday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sparked controversy when he appeared to give a nod to the Open Balkan initiative following regional countries refusing to allow his plane to cross their territory to take him to Serbia.
“NATO and EU want to turn the Balkans into a project of their own called ‘closed Balkans’,” Lavrov said Monday (6 June) evening, adding, “if a visit by a Russian foreign minister is being seen in the West as something close to a global threat, then by all accounts things within the West are pretty bad”.
