Facebook\npage<\/a> were Savo Kentera, President of the ACM, Fabrizio Luciolli, President\nof the Atlantic Treaty Association and of the Italian Atlantic Committee, Damir\nMarusic, representative of the Atlantic Council of the USA, and Bosko Jaksic,\njournalist from Serbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\nKentera stated that this COVID pandemic changed our\nlives in more than one way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith the Western democracies struggling to contain the virus\nand its consequences, many have praised Chinese response strategies of the\nother authoritarian regimes in tackling the crisis. Both China and Russia have\nseized the momentum to emerge as international benefactors sending medical\nequipment, supplies and human resources to the countries affected by virus\u201d,\nKentera assessed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking of the situation in the USA, the country which\nis currently most affected by the virus, Marusic said that the quarantine in\nthe USA will last at least until the end of May. He also thinks that not\nsufficiently strong central government in Washington represents the additional\nproblem to the USA in this situation and adds that the virus will definitely\naffect the upcoming elections in that country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEverything is\ndiscussed through the lenses of the virus. What I find astonishing is the fact\nthat the Democrats drew back and let President Trump do what he wants. They are\nprobably just waiting for his mistakes to gain their political points. But it\nis wrong to think that the virus can be defeated only from the center,\neverything is left in Trump\u2019s hands which could go against the Democrats in the\nend. I understand why they are doing this, but it is a very risky policy\u201d\nMarusic stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fabrizio Luciolli assessed that the virus did not attack\npeople only, but the multilateral organizations such as the UN, the EU and NATO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt turns out that we have two different Europes within\nthe Union. Italy, Spain, Greece and France have been on one side for long while\non the other side are northern countries led by Germany. Italy has been\nabsolutely alone for so long. Russia and China used this. Pandemic will cause\ngreat economic problems. Each Italian will have EUR43 thousand of debt which\nwill be a huge challenge\u201d stated Luciolli.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clear tactics of Beijing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Commenting on the\naid from China which has been sent all around the world, Bosko Jaksic said that\nthe tactics of Beijing is clear and is just an introduction in their attempts\nto strengthen economic and political position after the pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRussia launched the narratives that it is\nsuccessfully fighting the crisis, aiming at undermining European institutions.\nPressurized by China, the EU did not criticize Beijing in its last report. It\u2019s\nunderstandable since the economic trade between China and the EU was more than\nEUR1 billion. China does not want to take the blame but is sending the aid with\nthe intention to strengthen its political and economic position after the\npandemic\u201d, states Jaksic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Working many years as a journalist and editor of the\nforeign policy editorial of the Belgrade’s \u201ePolitika\u201c, he reminded that Serbian\nPresident Aleksandar Vucic, when talking about fraternal relations with both\nthe Russian and Chinese Presidents, praised particularly the aid coming from\nChina and Russia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure\nabout Vucic’s intentions. By such behavior, he maybe wants to attract greater\naid from the West. Vucic counts on the West’s help to resolve the issue of\nKosovo, but he doesn’t want their help in strengthening independence of the institutions\nand freedom of the press. The coronavirus helped him in the sense of\nstrengthening his power like Orban in Hungary, but the opposition is quiet and\nthe parliament didn\u2019t work up until recently,\u201d Jaksic stated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking of the situation in the region, Jaksic assessed\nthat the Western Balkans has become the epicenter of the new disinformation\ncampaign. He added that even though NATO has built up democratic processes in\nthe region by Montenegro’s and North Macedonia’s joining, China and Russia are\nincreasing their activities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lavrov’s\nstatement, a continuation of the Russian pressure on Montenegro<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nKentera also agreed with these assessments, indicating\nthat Montenegro wants to live by standards that are promoted by the Western\nsystem of value and not by authoritarian regimes’ rules, such as Chinese and\nRussian. He added that Russia is neither giving up on the Balkans, nor on\nMontenegro as its sphere of interest. Kentera reminded that this was showed by\nthe latest statement of Russian Diplomacy Chief Sergey Lavrov, who said that he\nhoped the Montenegrin government would be left by those pursuing Anti-Russian\npolitics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSuch statement\nis neither friendly nor diplomatic. We can see 2016 recurrence, when before the\nattempted coup we witnessed similar statements coming from Moscow. The newest\nstatement is coming without any provocations from Montenegro’s part, but\nneither this nor any other statement will influence our European path; it will\nonly strengthen our position in NATO. We seek stronger rule of law and\ndemocracy, and I don’t think that China or Russia are offering them, on the\ncontrary,\u201d Kentera stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marusic assessed that a stronger role of the EU will be\nthe key to the Western Balkans, despite the crisis caused by the pandemic. He\nstated that the Balkans must continue to be in the Brussels’ focus, if the\nUnion wants a stable region. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luciolli estimated that instead of \u201ccommunion\u201d, during\nthe crisis the Union has seen strengthening of individual national approach,\ncommenting on the NATO’s reaction as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEven NATO, as well as the EU, didn’t act swiftly at the\nbeginning. This is understandable because of its complex organization, which is\nboth a political and a military alliance. Now, the only such multilateral\norganization, which does the job properly and which gives the results on the\nfield, is NATO,\u201d Luciolli said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Atlantic Council will continue to organize similar\nonline conferences on current affairs in the upcoming period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The coronavirus consequences will be enormous but alliances such as NATO and the EU can give the best response to these challenges, despite their slow initial reaction, was assessed by the participants of the online conference of the Atlantic Council of Montenegro (ACM). They added that the Western Balkans need to be in focus of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14778,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29,30,31,17,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dogadjaji","category-events","category-featured","category-istaknuto","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19132,"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14777\/revisions\/19132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascg.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}