Podgorica, (MINA) – The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) committed itself in a secret agreement, signed with the United Russia in 2011, that Montenegro will not join the European Union (EU) if such a move is against Russian interests, said Prime Minister Milojko Spajic, adding that this is why the party is now blocking European integration.

Spajic said this during the Prime Minister’s Questions session in the Parliament, responding to the DPS MP Andija Nikolic who asked whether he would resign if Montenegro fails to close all EU negotiation chapters by the end of the year.

He asked Nikolic whether he was familiar with the content of the DPS agreement with United Russia and what it foresees.

“I think that some are keeping the young members of the DPS in the dark. Some may not tell you what obligations they undertook in that agreement and who they have been blackmailed by. They may have been blackmailed by Russia, or by the Russian secret services, which could be threatening to make the agreement public”, Spajic said.

He said that, perhaps, Russian President Vladimir Putin is threatening to disclose the agreement, which, according to him, has not been made public.

“They showed one version of it to the Western partners and they lost their trust when they saw that they had agreed to. In that agreement it is written that if the interests of Russia are contrary with those of the EU, Montenegro will not enter the EU. You committed to that in 2011 and now you want to implement it in the parliament”, said Spajic.

He pointed out that there were many people from administrations before 2020 who sincerely wanted Montenegro to join the EU.

“I know some of you and I know that you sincerely support the EU, but I must say that the leadership did not allow Montenegro to join the EU before 2020. There were no obstacles at the time, only internal policies that did not want to join the EU, so we only started closing the chapter last year and this year”, said Spajic.

According to him, DPS had a lot of time to bring Montenegro closer to the EU by 2020.

Nikolic asked Spajic why he did not ask the partners from his own government, who say that “Putin is their president”, whether they renounced Putin.

“You speak about 2011 to divert attention from my question. Someone from your PR team advised you to do that, and that person doesn’t understand politics as well as you do”, said Nikolic.

According to Nikolic, in 2011 and 2012, Putin was welcomed by key Western leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the British Prime Minister, and even in Washington, and it was even considered a potential NATO member.

He asked how a country that cooperated with Russia could have become a member of NATO.