Am off to Montenegro tomorrow to advise them on their future status negotiations with Belgrade. The call from Slavica arrived yesterday just before Anne’s parents; Anne and I went into CEPS this afternoon for me to print out some Montenegro/FRY reading material and also incidentally to finalise the sale of our house in North Belfast by fax with our solicitor.

The EU’s diplomatic intervention in FRY appears to be disastrously badly aimed. Rather than acting as honest brokers to ensure a soft landing for whatever solution is worked out between Podgorica and Belgrade, they are trying desperately to hold together a federation which even the Serbs don’t want on the present terms. This will strengthen Kostunica, Bulatovic and Soc in the respective internal political struggles against a) Djindjic and other relatively good guys in Belgrade, and b) Djukanovic and his multi-ethnic coalition. The smearing of Djukanovic (using Italian courts and Croatian press) as a smuggler is pathetic; it’s not as if he is the only politician in the region whose past is not beyond question, and it’s quite obvious to me at any rate that the potential replacements for him in Montenegro are bad news.

As for the eventual set of relationships, it’s clear to me (and indeed seems to have become clear to the Serbs back in October) that a two-member federation is an exceptionally unstable set-up. I don’t go all the way wth the Montenegrins – I think it could become viable if given enough outside support. But the only players who actually have both the incentive and the resources to keep such an arrangement going are the US and EU (and to an extent Russia). And at the moment I don’t see them offering enough to the Serbs, let alone to the Montenegrins, to make the continuation of Yugoslavia a worthwhile prospect.

And to be honest I think the international community overrates the importance of preventing Montenegro’s secession in terms of the destabilising effect on the region. Djukanovic has been arguing in every capital he can reach that Montenegro is a special case with no consequences for Kosovo, Western Macedonia or the Republika Srpska. In terms of international law (which I don’t really rate as a useful concept anyway) he is undoubtedly right.

Time for bed.