Montenegro

Montenegrin MPs are to debate a pro-NATO motion of the ruling coalition at an extraordinary session in September.

The resolution says NATO membership is in the interest not only of the state but of all citizens and is not the exclusive choice of "authorities or any party or [part of] the political or intellectual elite".

Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic on Sunday said Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina will be the first ex-Yugoslav republics to sign a border demarcation agreement.

After meeting the President of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dragan Covic, in the town of Tivat, Vujanovic said the agreement would be signed  by the end of August in Vienna.

Chancellor Angela Merkel on August 16 condemned a surge in German attacks on refugee shelters and warned that the issue of asylum could become a bigger challenge for the European Union than the Greek debt crisis.

Russia has destroyed some 597 tonnes of food products illegally imported from blacklisted countries since August 6, statistics show.

A message dated August 15 and available on the website of Rosselkhoznadzor, the country's food safety watchdog, reads [RU] that "to date" some 550 tons of agricultural products have been detained and liquidated.

Russia on Thursday said it had added Montenegro to the list of countries from which it was banning food imports in retaliation to Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis.

Moscow has added five European countries to its food imports ban list introduced in response to Western sanctions against Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.

"Those countries are Albania, Montenegro, Iceland, and Liechtenstein, as well as Ukraine under certain conditions," Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said during a cabinet  meeting on Thursday, according to RIA Novosti.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has signed a decree that extends the list of countries that fall under Russian counter-sanctions, TASS is reporting.

The list now includes Albania, Montenegro, Iceland and Liechtenstein, "as well as Ukraine, under special conditions," the agency said.

Eduard Kukan, head of the delegation of the European Parliament for Relations with Serbia, on Thursday said there was no will in the EU to re-introduce visas for Serbia, as it would be seen as a backward step.

A petition calling for the abolition of free tuition privileges for Montenegrin citizens in Serbia has caused a stir after it was reported to have collected amost 14,000 signatures.

The petition calls on the Serbian education authorities to allow Montenegrins to attend state universities only as ordinary foreigners, which means they must pay to study.

Police on Thursday arrested several leaders and officials in the scandal-hit municipality of Budva on suspicion of abuse of office and of damaging the local budget to the tune of several million euros, local media reported.