The President of the Assembly, Andrija Mandić, hosted a ceremonial cocktail on the occasion of a significant anniversary – 20 years since Montenegro’s admission to the United Nations (UN), as announced by the Montenegrin parliament.
Mandić emphasized that the prerequisite for Montenegro’s membership in the United Nations and future membership in the European Union was the centuries-old struggle of ancestors for freedom.
„On the Field of Kosovo, our ancestors gave their answer to history. They showed that they belonged to the then Christian Europe, a Europe that believed in eternal life, in the heavenly kingdom, in honor and freedom as the highest values. That answer was not only martial. It was spiritual, moral, and civilizational. Today’s Montenegro, which aspires to the European Union, is not going into the unknown. It is returning to its European family. It is returning to that civilizational circle whose foundations it defended both in 1389 and in all the subsequent centuries of its struggle,“ Mandić emphasized.
As he added, the return must be dignified.
„The Europe we aspire to is not just a common market, funds, and administrative chapters. Europe is the rule of law. Europe is equality before the law. Europe is respect for diversity. Europe is freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of identity. Europe is a state where no one is punished for being who they are,“ Mandić stated.
Twenty years after joining the UN, Montenegro, as Mandić said, has the opportunity to show that it can be both traditional and modern, faithful to its covenant and oriented towards the future.
„Let this be a call to build Montenegro as a country of open doors and clean faces,“ Mandić said.
The resident coordinator of the United Nations in Montenegro, Karolin Tiso, also addressed the attendees. She stated that two decades have passed since the Montenegrin flag was raised on the East River, which signified the return of the country as an equal member.
„I welcome the joint recognition of Montenegro’s institutions by the UN Charter. Montenegro has been a principled member and has consistently demonstrated its commitment to multilateralism, cooperation, and an international order based on rules. This commitment is reflected not only in diplomacy but also through various missions and the Paris Agreement on climate action… There are many common results we can be proud of,“ Tiso emphasized.
Montenegro became a member of the United Nations on June 28, 2006, less than a month after restoring its independence in a referendum held on May 21, 2006.
The UN General Assembly unanimously adopted the resolution on Montenegro’s admission, making it the 192nd member state of the United Nations. During the ceremony at the UN headquarters in New York, the Montenegrin flag was raised in front of the building for the first time.
Admission to the UN represented the first major international step for the new state and confirmed its international legal subjectivity after gaining independence.
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