Week in Review: A Make or Break Year

Tightrope

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic (C), Prime Minister Ana Brnabic (L) and Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic (R), 24 September 2020. EPA-EFE/KOCA SULEJMANOVIC

Will 2023 be the year of the tightrope for Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic? Everything seems to suggest so. The Serbian leader will continue to find himself between Western countries pushing him to align with EU sanctions against Russia and his own public which remains overwhelmingly opposed to this.

Yet Vucic may face even more difficult balancing acts in 2023. Chief among them could come as a result of US and EU pressure to sign up to a deal which would result in de facto recognition of Kosovo's independence by Serbia. Just as challenging will be dealing with pent up socioeconomic pressure in Serbia as inflation and economic uncertainty erode already modest living standards.

Read more: Serbia in 2023: Against Backdrop of War, Pressure for Deal on Kosovo (January 19, 2023) Deadlocked

Opposition supporters at the anti-Government protest in Montenegro's capital Podgorica. Photo: BIRN/Samir Kajosevic

Montenegro has been in a more or less permanent state of political crisis and deadlock ever since the landmark August 2020 Parliamentary elections which ousted the Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS, from power. Will 2023 be the year that the country cuts the Gordian knot of its complex political deadlock?

Presidential elections have been scheduled for March 19. Early Parliamentary elections also seem like the only way out of the current government stalemate. Yet for that to happen, a functioning Constitutional Court must be in place. Much is at stake in 2023.