Montenegro’s Prime Minister Milojko Spajić defended the government’s proposed Euro model in parliament as a way to help households absorb inflation through higher wages and pensions, while an opposition lawmaker pressed him to support a 30% linear pension increase. The debate put the cost of fuel and pensioners’ purchasing power at the centre of the government’s response to rising prices.
Answering questions during the prime minister’s question time in the Parliament of Montenegro, Spajić described inflation as imported and pointed to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the war in Iran as sources of pressure. Higher wages under the Euro model would reduce the share of household income spent on fuel, making price increases easier to bear, particularly for people on minimum wages, he argued. “We are fighting like lions here,” Spajić said.
Boris Mugoša, a lawmaker from the European Alliance, asked what measures the government was taking against inflation. Spajić pointed to fuel excise cuts made this year to ease the burden on consumers and said the government was continuing to reduce the duties. August excise revenue was lower even though turnover was considerably higher than a year earlier, according to the prime minister. Addressing the opposition over the cuts, he asked: “When did you do that? Never.”
The government’s income-based approach would also apply to imported food-price pressures, in Spajić’s account. He linked rising prices for fertiliser imported from Gulf countries to higher costs for corn, wheat and other animal feed, and expected meat, milk and cheese to become more expensive. His argument for raising pay was that households with substantially higher incomes would be better able to meet those costs, including more expensive fuel.
Pension policy draws opposition challenge
Danijel Živković, a lawmaker from the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), challenged the government over pensioners’ living standards. He called their standard “never worse” and said 50,000 pensioners lived on 456 euros, while more than 80,000 received pensions below the average. He asked what the government planned to do to improve their position.
Spajić replied that the Euro model covered pensions as well as wages and envisaged further increases. Its proposed nominal pension increase would be seven times greater than all the increases implemented by the DPS for pensioners during its time in government, he argued. He also put the cumulative pension increase from 2023 to April of next year at 20 times the increase provided under DPS rule. Those comparisons were part of his response to Živković’s criticism, rather than a figure for the proposed increase in euros.
The prime minister cited minimum pensions of around 100 euros and lowest wages of 222 euros under the previous government. He also referred to pensions of 100 euros in 2021. Rejecting Živković’s account of current living standards, Spajić said Montenegrin pensioners had “never lived better” and contrasted the two sides’ records: “What you did in 30 years, we did in three years.”
Živković asked whether Spajić would support the DPS proposal for a 30% across-the-board pension rise. He warned that pensions would increase by 10% while wages rose by 100%, and asked what would happen to contributions already paid, including whether the government should return them. The lawmaker also criticised a policy he described as relying on a good tourism season and better collection of excise duties and value-added tax.
Under the Euro model, pensions would rise again through adjustments linked to wage growth, a mechanism Spajić presented as protection for older citizens’ living standards. He urged the DPS to back the model and questioned why it would withhold support if it had good intentions. The government’s proposed wage-linked approach and the opposition’s proposed linear increase remained distinct answers to the question of how to raise pension income.
Spajić also linked the income plans to emigration. People had left Montenegro in waves since 2011 because they felt hopeless, in his assessment. He credited the Europe Now 1 and Europe Now 2 programmes with restoring hope and argued that the Euro model would send a message to residents not to leave the country.
Retail intervention and food costs
Dritan Abazović, a lawmaker and leader of the URA Civic Movement, asked for the exact address of the state-owned company or supermarket that Spajić had proposed establishing several years earlier. The prime minister responded that discussions with the European Commission had led the government to conclude that a state retailer competing with private supermarkets would be considered unfair state intervention.
According to Spajić, the European Commission warned that such an intervention would jeopardise Montenegro’s ability to close its negotiating chapters. He put the possible delay at another five to 10 years. Rather than establish a state supermarket, the government would pursue limits on retail margins and commodity reserves, he said.
The reserves would retain the underlying idea of a state supermarket but distribute goods at wholesale rather than retail level, Spajić explained. The proposed change would make the state’s role different from operating a shop in direct competition with private retailers. His answer set out the government’s intended alternative; it did not give a date for establishing the reserves or imposing margin limits.
Northern projects and state revenue
Mirsad Nurković, a lawmaker from the Bosniak Party, asked about the Štedim Ski Centre project on Hajla. Spajić described it as important to Rožaje, Montenegro’s northern region and the country as a whole, and said the government would do everything it could to advance it as soon as possible. Nurković identified construction of the base station as the main obstacle to putting the ski centre into operation.
A preferred bidder has been selected for the base-station tender, but the second-ranked bidder has appealed that decision, according to Nurković. The project is awaiting a decision from a second-instance commission on the appeal. That decision remains the immediate unresolved step for the base station.
Spajić called the departure abroad of about 100,000 working-age residents from the north Montenegro’s greatest tragedy. He identified transport connections and infrastructure as necessary for the country’s progress and outlined plans for about 500 kilometres of motorways and express roads linking its regions. The road network was presented as a plan, not as construction already under way.
On aviation, the government plans to form a strategic coordination body within the next four years to manage the establishment of national air traffic control. Spajić expects national control to bring additional revenue to the state; the coordinating body has yet to be formed.
