Chinese yuan bills Photo: Japanexperterna.se flickr.com
Montenegro, one of the presumed front-runners of the EU accession process, is facing a financial predicament. The Western Balkan country is struggling to pay off a 1 billion US dollar Chinese loan for a controversial highway project, which has put the country in a dire financial situation.
The expected debt repayment will begin in July of this year.
This has put the newly elected government of Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapić in a difficult situation. Krivokapić, who expressed his opposition to the highway project in 2014, has turned to the EU for financial assistance.
The EU, however, has voiced their concerns for accepting such large loans in the past and at the time advised Montenegro not to proceed with the Chinese-financed project.
International News
May 5, 2021
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) The European Union started delivering EU-funded coronavirus vaccines Tuesday to the Balkans, a region that wants to join the 27-nation bloc but where China and Russia have already been making political gains by supplying the much-needed shots.
The European Commission last month announced that 651,000 Pfizer-BioNTech doses will be delivered to Serbia, Bosnia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania and Kosovo in weekly instalments from May to August. The vaccines are funded from a 70 million euro package ($85 million) adopted by the Commission in December.
Most of the Balkan countries have struggled to get coronavirus vaccines, except for Serbia, which launched a successful inoculation campaign mainly thanks to millions of doses of China’s Sinopharm and Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines, which have so far not been approved by EU’s drug administrator.
Both jabs are currently under review by the European Medicines Agency and have not been approved for rollout in the bloc.
But following in the footsteps of Serbia, other Western Balkan nations have been turning to China and Russia for vaccines, as the EU faced criticism for supply delays.
Varhelyi, who travelled to the region to formally deliver the vaccines, rejected such criticism as vaccine diplomacy . The delivery of the vaccines confirms our continuous commitment to provide support, as we have been doing since the outbreak of the pandemic, he said on the second leg of his three-day tour.
While in Bosnia on Tuesday, Varhelyi also reiterated a pledge that the EU will not let down the western Balkans in their fight against the virus.