Von Cramon: EU decision not to help Montenegro not smart

viola fon kramon
N1

Viola Von Cramon-Taubadel MEP said on Wednesday that the European Commission’s decision not to help Montenegro repay a loan to China’s ExIm bank is not smart.

“I am not sure that’s a strategically smart decision,” the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee member wrote in a Twitter post. Von Cramon is a member of the Delegation to the EU-Serbia Stabilisation and Association Parliamentary Committee and has reported on Kosovo to the European Parliament.

“Corrupt leaders such as Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic had years to exploit the country. Now the new government needs to clean up also the financial heritage,” she wrote, warning that the European Union “once made mistakes in Greece and China took over the Port of Piraeus. “Now the Chinese government have the chance (if Montenegro cannot serve the loan) to take over main parts of Montenegro’s coastline. So, before that we should think twice not to play in the Chinese hands again,” she wrote.

Von Cramon’s Tweet included a link to an N1 report on EU spokesman Peter Stano’s replies to questions about Montenegro’s request for financial assistance to repay the loan to Chinese ExIm bank for the construction of a road by a Chinese state-owned company.