The authorities in Montenegro say that more than 50 per cent of citizens will claim to speak Serbian, which could return the Serbian language to schools and official use in the country.
Montenegro is holding a controversial census on 3rd December that could raise tensions and risk further sharpening ethnic divides.
The tiny Balkan nation of just over 600,000 people has a large ethnic Serbian community that makes up 28 per cent of the population. But some fear that pro-Russia forces could try to inflate the number of people identifying as Serbian.
Nikola Rakočević is a Member of Parliament for the Montenegrin Nationalists party:
“Mr Vučić (the president of Serbia) said on television that the census in Montenegro is one of the key issues for the vital interest of Serbia. Imagine that statement, imagine if before a census in Serbia, a Croatian or a Montenegrin president would say the same about their minorities in Serbia. It would be at least strange.”
The census was initially supposed to take place on 1st November but was postponed because of technical problems and a possible boycott by opposition parties.
The divide between ethnic Serbs and the rest of the population is somewhat blurry as some Montenegrin nationalists are native Serbian speakers.
Miroslav Doderović is a professor of philosophy at the University of Podgorica. He says the census has been called by pro-Serbian parties.
“They are forcing the census as an opportunity to strengthen their arguments and to try to influence the change in the constitutional-legal category and the position of the Serbian language and nationality.“
Montenegro gained independence from Serbia in 2006. In 2023, a new coalition of pro-European and pro-Serb parties took power, aiming to lead the Balkan nation to European Union membership.
