Podgorica, (MINA) – The Democratic People’s Party (DNP) and the New Serbian Democracy (NSD) requested the deletion of Article 1 of the Law on the Status of the Descendants of the Petrovic-Njegos Dynasty, which refers to annexation, thus conditioning their support to the act, while the opposition has conditioned its support on retaining the term “forced annexation” in the legal text.

Montenegrin Parliament MPs concluded on Monday the debate on the amendments to the Law on the Status of the Descendants of the Petrovic Njegos Dynasty, and will vote on them at a later date.

The amendments, submitted by MPs of the Europe Now Movement (PES) Milos Pizurica and Gordan Stojovic, propose, among other changes, deleting the word “violent” from the text, referring to the annexation of Montenegro in 1918.

Parliament Speaker Andrija Mandic said that the proponents themselves proposed amendments to the Law, after a discussion with Prince Nikola.

“They have the opposition and a part of the parliamentary majority arguing over a detail, and I think that our parliamentary group has made a good proposal in order to secure a majority and to do what is fair”, Mandic said.

He pointed out that the proposer is to assess how to secure the necessary majority.

“We want the castle to be returned to the descendants of the Petrovic Njegos dynasty, but in order to do so, some moves must be made – either keep the word “violent” to secure support, or remove it and exclude historical context from the law”, said Mandic.

Democratic People’s Party leader Milan Knezevic said that the the claims regarding the annexation and injustice done to the Petrovic Njegos dynasty contain several inconsistencies.

“The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and its Assembly, at the request of King Aleksandar Karadjordjevic, made a special decision to compensate the Petrovic Njegos dynasty with tens of millions of francs, which is equivalent to tens or hundreds of millions of euros today, after which the descendants of the Petrovic Njegos dynasty bought villas in Nice”, said Knezevic.

He said that the DNP MPs are ready to vote for the proposed amendments if the reference to annexation is removed from the introduction.

Member of Parliament of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) Nela Savkovic Vukcevic said that omitting the word “violent” would once again offend the victims, who have not even been fully identified yet.

She argues that the term “violent annexation” is too mild.