The EUObserver has published an article by Zeljko Ivanovic, the founder and director of the daily Vijesti, calling on the EU to take action to end the campaign of violence and intimidation against independent media in Montenegro. The article coincides with a speech by European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy Štefan Füle about Montenegro’s progress towards EU accession, in which he said: “Recent attacks against media are unacceptable. Avoiding impunity for the perpetrators is the best tool to prevent such crimes in the future.”
Committee to Protect Journalists’ Senior Adviser Jean-Paul Marthoz also picked up the EU theme, describing the situation as ‘the Wild West for the Montenegrin press‘. He noted that Montenegro was included in a list of “mafia states” in a 2012 Foreign Affairs article, and cautions the EU over the accession process: “…drawing from their bruising experience with Romania and Bulgaria, they know that rushing candidate countries into the EU without solving key issues linked to the rule of law, corruption, or organized crime is a recipe for disaster.”