Anti-Montenegrin sentiment

The June 2020 plenary session of the National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska consisted of nationalistic and anti-Montenegrin remarks, along with heavy insults against the highest officials of Montenegro.[1]

After the dissolution of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and the Montenegrin independence that followed, Serbian influence has become more and more apparent. Serbia wields its media influence to spread narratives and disinformation, employing bombastic headlines regarding Montenegro’s development as a country. Serbia also exerts its influence through a church in Montenegro: the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral, which is the largest eparchy of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Outside of these vectors for influence, the relationship between the two countries is generally cooperative, with ongoing collaboration on many other matters. Serbian tourists visit Montenegro in large numbers. In summer 2019, for example, upwards of 460,000 Serbian tourists visited the country. Because of the tourism industry’s significant importance as a means of national income and the intense Serbian interest in vacationing in the country, the industry is high on the list of targets against which Serbian media spread disinformation, especially in the lead up to the summer season. Many articles from Serbian outlets cast Montenegro as an expensive and unsafe tourist destination with dirty beaches and aggressive locals, featuring headlines such as: “Tourists massively cancel their vacations in Montenegro” and “Snakes came out from the sea and went after people on the Buljarica beach.” Similar discourse has been observed in prior years, but so far it has not impacted the number of Serbian visitors or the overall tourism economy.[2]

Minister of Health of Serbia Zlatibor Lončar claimed that there are too many Montenegrins and that he tends not to have Montenegrins working in Serbian institutions.[3]

In 2020, Happy TV and TV Pink S were suspended from broadcasting on Montenegrin cable TV by Regulatory media authority for 3 months because their talk-show programs they promoted hatred speech, intolerance and discrimination against members of the Montenegrin nationality.[4]

Members of Serbia's Montenegrin Party have claimed that he latest textbooks in Serbia are written in such a way as to belittle Montenegrin history and that they are also full of forgeries.[5]

Since the nineties, religious figures of Serbian Orthodox Church, including Amfilohije and Irinej dispute existence of Montenegrins as a nation, calling them "the bastards of Milovan Đilas".[6] Also, Serbian Orthodox Church actively criticise the existence of Montenegrin language, calling it as an artificial one.[7]