There are more Serbs and those who speak the Serbian language, but the census results in Montenegro everyone interprets as they see fit. The question is whether this will lead to a deepening of divisions, he writes Deutsche says.
According to the results of the census conducted by the Montenegrin Administration for Statistics (MONSTAT) in December last year, the majority of Montenegrins in Montenegro are 41,12 percent (256.436 citizens), Serbs are 32,93 percent (205.370), and Bosniaks are 9,45 percent. (58.956).
Most citizens speak Serbian - 43,18 percent (269.307), and Montenegrin - 34,52 percent (215.299).
This is the first census after the three-decade rule of the Democratic Party of Socialist Milo Đukanović was replaced, and the first since the pro-Serbian parties of the former Democratic Front came to power.
The results of the census were waited for ten months, but those on language, religion and nation did not change drastically compared to the 2011 census.
Between the two counts, the number of Montenegrins decreased by 22.429, and the number of Serbs increased by 27.260. Serbian is spoken by 0,3 percent more citizens than 12 years ago, and in the same period the number of citizens whose mother tongue is Montenegrin decreased by two and a half percent.
Stable identities
"The results of the census indicate the stability of established identities, but also that the divisions in Montenegrin society remain the same," analyst Sergej Sekulović told DW.
Prime Minister and leader of the Europe Now Movement Milojko Spajić stated on the X network that "the only real winner of the census is European, civic Montenegro, which is big enough for everyone."
Assembly President Andrija Mandić, Spajić's coalition partner, said that "as a member of the Serbian people" he is satisfied because the number of Serbs in Montenegro has increased compared to the last census.
They are also satisfied with the strongest opposition Democratic Party of Socialists because, as they state, despite "attempts to implement ethnic engineering with the help of the authorities in Serbia, the civil character of the state has been preserved."
The question of the Serbian language is reopening
Despite the fact that, after the restoration of independence in 2006, Montenegrin was declared the official language in Montenegro - the fact that Serbian is spoken by the majority of citizens for the representatives of the Serbian parties that make up the government is a reason to initiate amendments to the Constitution so that Serbian would also be an official language .
"Every third resident of Montenegro is a Serb and the Serbian language is the majority language in Montenegro. I expect you to say that the majority language is Serbian and that it should be the official language," says New Serbian Democracy MP Dejan Đurović.
Party officials of the former Democratic Front initially announced the initiative to make the Serbian language official if the Serbian language would be the mother tongue of more than 50 percent of citizens, which seems to have been their expectation.
On the other hand, DPS MP Nikola Milović told DW that this list put an end to the controversy about what the initiative to amend the Constitution due to the change in the status of the Serbian language could bring about.
"If the initiative comes on the agenda, of course we will be against it." If it needs to be started, I would like it to be now, to expose some things to the end, to see what the parties in power are doing. "Montenegro is a civil state, and with this census, that story is over," adds Milović.
The initiative to amend the Constitution in the language part is legitimate, but according to analyst Sekulović, the basic question is what should it serve - strengthening the civil state or strengthening identity politics?
"The presented results can bring additional dissolution, but also integration. All the dilemmas from before remain, only that now it is sharpening, or rather, accelerating the process, where everyone will have to come out clearly and openly with their politics and say whether they are for the EU or internal conflicts, whether they are for Montenegro to be civil state or small Bosnia", believes Sekulović.
Since we haven't heard "anything new" in this sense, the divisions remain and now, according to Sekulović, the question arises as to what the political elites will do with it and how society will react.
The Russians came and stayed
The biggest news brought by the census in terms of the national census is that Russians are now, with over two percent, the fifth largest ethnic group in Montenegro, after the traditional Montenegrins, Serbs, Bosniaks and Albanians.
These are mostly people who came to live in Montenegro earlier, mostly on the coast, but there are also those who arrived after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Although the data showed a significant number of Ukrainian refugees in Montenegro during the previous year, the number of Ukrainians in the census was 0,5 percent.
