By Ljubomir Kostovski

The New Year holidays will certainly influence the fading of the full effect of the recent riots in Montenegro, in the immediate vicinity of the capital, Podgorica. The protests caused blockages in road and rail traffic and disruptions for airport authorities, as the angry crowd reached the gates of the airport. The riots are part of the rejection of environmental projects in this country, known for them, and so they are also becoming political, both internally and externally!

If one carefully reads the news coming from this country, two paradoxes are noticed. First, that the reason for the unrest—the construction of the wastewater treatment plant—is not a polluting factor, but is in the function to create a healthy environment and benefits all citizens. The second paradox is political—opposition to the construction of this system comes practically from only one party. In the area where it has influence, it has already organized a referendum, considering it “law,” although from a strictly legal perspective it is not binding.

The political problem concerns the fact that even territorially the referendum is disputed—in the Zeta region, decisions are being made on a project located in the capital’s territory, meaning formally it is another municipality, although the demarcation has not yet been fully completed, emphasizes Prime Minister Milojko Spajic, who claims that the police intervention is legal.

In any case, the referendum gave an answer—a decisive “no” to the collector, so the noise of the excavator, as a sign of the start of work, caused a “people’s turnout” on the second to last day of 2025. Fifty people were detained, among them the President of the Zeta municipality, Mihailo Asanovic from the Democratic People’s Party, while Milan Knezevic, President of this party and member of the ruling coalition, voluntarily went to the police station himself, Podgorica’s Vijesti reported.

Knezevic fakes an arrest in Podgorica, while Vucic “protests” in Belgrade

It is a fact, and this was evident from the TV news, that Knezevic simply got into the “police vehicle”, which did not even move in any direction, so technically no one actually detained him there, and after briefly standing in place in the vehicle, he had to get out of the vehicle. But in his defense, as a victim of supposed repressions, the same day, in front of TV cameras in Belgrade, the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, “protested” twice. Once during a press conference after a session of the Security Council, and much more explicitly later in a statement regarding the alleged arrest of aforementioned Knezevic, which in fact did not happen, and in which he was joined by the Minister of Culture, Nikola Selakovic.

With such external support, and likely guidance for action, Mihailo Asanovic of the Democratic Party announced his party’s exit from the coalition government. In truth, Knezevic’s party has four MPs in the Parliament of Montenegro, and the government’s survival would be seriously threatened only if another pro-Serbian party joined it, namely that of Andrija Mandic, who is also the Speaker of Parliament. The aforementioned Mandic requested an urgent session of the Defense and Security Council. “Montenegro needs ‘peace and stability,’” he said. He then said that for now he would not lead the Parliament, and if someone else wants to — “let them lead it.”

Meanwhile, residents of Zeta oppose the collector because they fear such a facility would allegedly pollute the environment, while authorities emphasize the opposite. For years, wastewater from the sewage system has mostly been discharged untreated into the Moraca River, and from there into Lake Skadar, the largest lake in the Balkans.

The plan of the authorities in Podgorica to address the problem of wastewater by building a collector in the neighboring municipality, which for years has been an additional polluter of the waters, is to create a situation where there is no untreated water flowing into the Moraca River, and subsequently into Lake Skadar. Moreover, the area where the collector is to be built is already heavily polluted by another cause. It is home to the industrial zone of the former Aluminum Plant (KAP), meaning that this “fertile plain,” as the protesters call it, is only a made-up name. Because, even though KAP has not operated for two decades, the red sludge pools remaining from aluminum production still cause concern among locals, leading many to leave the area, Podgorica Vijesti reported.

Montenegro’s Path to Independence Goes Through the Idea of an Ecological State

It is important to emphasize that the wastewater treatment plant is part of the project “Montenegro – an Ecological State”, which, according to the words of senior Montenegrin politicians, is part of the process of Montenegro’s independence from the federation with Serbia. This occurred at the time when the so-called Zabljak Constitution was being adopted, which is said to be the fruit of the work of the Macedonian professor of constitutional law at the Faculty of Law, Dr. Svetomir Skaric, who was supposed to find a solution for that federation to survive, and according to the memoirs of Momir Bulatovic in the book “Less Than a Game – More Than a Life”, a scientist with a lifesaving idea emerged.

“Precisely in the days and months when we were sorting out these heavy thoughts and feverishly seeking ways to free ourselves from the sea… a lifesaving idea appeared”, wrote the first president of this country, Bulatovic, “Dr. Dragan Hajdukovic, a physicist with incredible powers of imagination… presented the idea of Montenegro becoming the first ecological state in the world”. Thus, exactly 30 years ago, Montenegro was called an ecological state in its constitution. Does this explain the attitude of the “abandoned” Serbia towards Montenegrin sovereignty?

Today, Dr. Hajdukovic has a career at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and for BBC says that it was not just an idea about protecting nature. “We are a small nation that can become great only if it rises to set an example for something good”, Hajdukovic said. “That good was supposed to be ecology”.

In the month that the government announces numerous environmental projects to “establish the state’s relationship with nature,” while many ecological organizations protest against its destruction, Hajdukovic says that “30 lost years are being celebrated”.

Physicist Hajdukovic has spent years at CERN trying to prove his theory of the bipolarity of gravity. He introduced the concept of the quantum vacuum, which he believes represents the real state of matter, as well as of the solid, liquid, and gas, and now awaits confirmation of his theory within scientific circles.

However, when he proposed ecology as Montenegro’s guiding principle three decades ago, he had still not achieved his goal. For Hajdukovic, the ecological state was not merely a project for nature protection, but an opportunity to promote the whole idea. “For example, we expected support from respected figures around the world for a concept that is now truly big in the world”, says the scientist. Hajdukovic admits that at the Zabljak meeting he disagreed with Bulatovic, who favored the survival of Yugoslavia, that is, an alliance with Serbia, and he believed that his country should become independent.

He officially returned to the country’s politics in 2018, when he ran as an independent candidate in the presidential elections.

A Carriage Pulled by Horses in Different Directions

Biologist and ecologist Vuk Ikovic responded to BBC’s question – where are the largest natural gaps in Montenegro? He leads the movement that opposes the construction of mini hydroelectric power plants, which in North Macedonia have devastated once clean eco environments, while bringing profit to a few (including, in our case, the current prime minister, among others). He says that ecologists in Montenegro are often in conflict with one another and do not cooperate. For BBC, he says they are on a carriage pulled by four horses, each going in a different direction.

Ikovic works in the NGO KOD in Montenegro and believes that “the country’s leadership still doubts that rivers, forests, land, and the sea are truly threatened, because they mostly assess the situation from their offices”.

“We boast that up to 70 percent of our territory is forested, yet we ignore the fact that half of those forests are of poor quality, having been cut down and burned once,” he said. “We promote ourselves as a tourist country, yet most cities discharge waste and sewage into rivers and the sea. We rent out hotels whose wastewater ends up in the river that flows onto the beach, where we also rent sunbeds and umbrellas to the same tourists”.

As an example of aggressive urbanization, Ikovic cites the practice in the EU for a city to have 25 to 50 square meters of green space per resident. “Podgorica has only three square meters per person”, he says.

How Can It Be In Accordance With The Law, If Construction Is Prohibited in Protected Areas?

According to Almer Mekic of the NGO Evromost, Durmitor, the site where politicians met 30 years ago to agree on the country’s ecological path, contains the most rivers in the protected area. The same applies to the region around the Prokletije mountain. “Two small hydroelectric power plants were built there, precisely in the protected area, and people were told that everything was done in accordance with the law”, Mekic says. “How can it be in accordance with the law, if construction is prohibited in protected areas?”

Mekic says that Montenegro has incredible natural potential.

“In just one hour, you can travel from Podgorica to the sea and climb a mountain, yet year after year we try to destroy that potential”, he notes.

One of the most well-known measures for protecting nature, at least for tourists visiting Montenegro, was the environmental tax, whose revenue was used for environmental protection.

The tax was introduced in 2008 for all foreign vehicles and was paid until early 2011 when entering Montenegro.

It applied for one year and ranged from 10 to 150 euros.

Prime Minister Igor Lukshic repealed that decision, and Predrag Mitrovic, President of the Employers’ Association of Montenegro, at the time said that the tax had done more harm than good.
“Tourists from Serbia, for example, reacted very badly to the eco-tax, and its contribution to the budget was insignificant,” Mitrovic said in 2010.

Although the tax was introduced in 2008, in March of the following year, Transport Minister Andrija Lompar announced its repeal.

Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic on social media announced the decision to proclaim Katich Nature Park as a protected area. The island of Katich, near Petrovac, is Montenegro’s second protected marine area.

In April, the Platamuni Cape in the municipality of Kotor received the status of a nature park. However, information from the Government of Montenegro on the occasion of 30 years since the creation of the ecological state shows that the ecological state is still just a goal, and not an achievement. “Thirty years, despite numerous efforts… we are not in a position to assess the real level of progress toward realizing the idea of an ecological state”, is said in this information. Reviving the concept created in 1991 must receive a new dimension through substantive initiatives to be implemented in the coming period.

Physicist Hajdukovic claims that “it is hard to find a historical enemy who has caused more damage to Montenegro than we ourselves have. God has generously rewarded the country with nature, and harshly punished it with politicians”, Hajdukovic adds.

The Collector Has Grown Into A Major Political and Financial Issue

Returning to the current problem for the authorities. The claims that the wastewater treatment plant in Botun is a public health threat or that it is based on outdated technology are completely unfounded, the EU Delegation to Montenegro told Vijesti.

Political actors are using this issue to position themselves within the government, but also in relation to the opposition, assesses political scientist Nikoleta Gjukanovic from the University of Donja Gorica.

“The collector has become the number one political issue due to the way the process was conducted—the lack of transparency and trust, as well as the fact that local infrastructure projects easily escalate into broader political conflicts,” she told the BBC.

Regular elections are expected in Montenegro in 2027, and the government formed then could potentially bring the country into the EU. However, the construction of the wastewater treatment plant is a “priority above all priorities”, said Sasha Mujovic, Mayor of Podgorica.

“The project envisions a modern and safe facility, fully in line with European standards”, the EU Delegation said. “Thousands of such plants operate successfully across the EU and beyond, improving environmental protection and safeguarding community health”.

EU taxpayers have provided 33 million euros in grants for this project, helping Montenegro fulfill its obligations under Chapter 27 of the EU accession negotiations, they added.

The government, supported by Knezevic’s party, adopted a spatial plan that provides for the construction of collectors, it adds.

“Milan is just an average actor in the play. He still hasn’t left the government, and we don’t know when he will”, said Milatovic, alluding to the once-popular Montenegrin TV series “Gjekna Hasn’t Died Yet, and We Don’t Know When Will She”.

A Farce and a Game of Politicians

Experience so far has shown that all of this could be a “big farce and game” of the politicians, says Professor Vladimir Djukanovic, originally from Podgorica and a frequent guest in TV studios in Belgrade. He says that cracks are becoming increasingly visible within the pro-Serbian bloc in Montenegro, which, along with Knezevic, is led by Andrija Mandic, President of the Montenegrin Parliament. “On the issue of the collectors, Knezevic remained in the minority because his party was inconsistent. “In one way, they voted in the local parliament when the spatial plan was being adopted, and in another way, they influence citizens not to approve the project,” Djukanovic says.

Of the 13 MPs in their coalition, four are from Knezevic’s party and nine from Mandic’s.

Since Miloјko Spajic’s government is supported by 52 of the 81 MPs, it would be threatened only if the entire pro-Serbian bloc decided to leave power.

This is unlikely given the number of ministerial positions and the number of positions in the state administration “deep down”.

Montenegro Is the Only European Country Protesting Against a Healthy and Clean Environment

If the location were to be changed, Montenegro would risk losing more than the already approved 100 million euros. “In addition, we would have to go through the entire process again: new planning documents, conceptual solutions, projects, studies, public debates”.

“That would set us back at least seven to eight years, during which all wastewater would still end up in the Moraca River and Lake Skadar, which is unacceptable and represents an ecological disaster”, said ecologist Aleksandar Dragicevic. He says that Montenegro is the only European country where there are protests against a healthy and clean environment.

This is how far the project “Montenegro – an Ecological State” has come, which certainly helped in the Europeanization of this country in the eyes of politicians in Brussels. And it happens when Montenegro is declared a sure favorite in the race of the Balkan countries for EU accession!

Source: CIVIL Media (Macedonian), January 5, 2026 | All rights reserved