Eurasia Press & News
Serbia’s Interior Minister Ivica Dacic says he hopes the negotiations on dual citizenship with Montenegro will be concluded in the coming days, and a deal will be signed soon.
“I expect a compromise agreement on dual citizenship with Montenegro, which would recognise dual citizenship for all those who gained the right by the date of the signed agreement, while the situation with new citizenship applications should be reviewed every following year,” Dacic told Belgrade’s Beta news agency in an interview on Sunday.
He stated the essential question is how to bring together two concepts – a liberal one from Serbia’s side, and restrictive from the Montenegrin side, since Montenegro thinks that dual citizenship should be granted only to those who had gained it until the time of its proclamation of independence.
The negotiations on dual citizenship between Montenegro and Serbia started in Belgrade on October 1 with a meeting between Kalamperovic and Dacic.
Montenegro separated from Serbia in 2006.
The problem of dual citizenship arose because Montenegrin law does not allow for dual citizenship.
According to Montenegro’s constitutional law, Montenegrin nationals who took up citizenship of another country after June 3, 2006, have to decide which citizenship to keep, unless a bilateral agreement with the country in question is signed.
Almost a third of Montenegro’s citizens see themselves as ethnic Serbs and want to maintain strong ties with Serbia.
