Milo Djukanovic

The European Parliament is to debate freedom of the media in Montenegro on Thursday amid concern that the media community is highly divided and that attacks on journalists remain unsolved.

Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee will debate a draft resolution on Montenegro, which also notes that journalists are poorly paid and that jobs are insecure.

"We congratulate the government and people for this achievement, this is a very good day for Montenegro, a good day for the Western Balkans and the whole alliance, " NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at the foreign ministers North-Atlantic Council meeting on Wednesday in Brussels.

The Montenegrin state prosecutor on Monday charged ex-mayor Lazar Radjenovic and several other officials from the scandal-hit resort town of Budva with abuse of office and costing the local budget eight million euros.

The Podgorica government believes that a NATO membership invitation is inevitable at the two-day meeting that starts on Tuesday and has invited dozens of journalists from major Montenegrin media to Brussels to witness the occasion.

The speaker of Montenegro's parliament, Ranko Krivokapic, is in Brussels on Monday to meet Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn ahead of crisis talks on new elections in the country, due to begin on Tuesday.

The Montenegrin opposition has been boycotting parliament for months after the ruling parties refused to implement new electoral legislation.

US Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he strongly supported Montenegro's membership of NATO, adding that the doors of the alliance were open.

Attending the Brod-Brijuni summit in Zagreb, Croatia, Biden said that Balkan NATO members Croatia and Slovenia had both shown what was possible through reform and reconciliation.

Montenegrin LGBT activists hope to walk the streets of the capital, Podgorica, for the third Gay Pride March, set for December 13.

The organizer of the parade, Queer Montenegro, an NGO, on Wednesday said it had decided to change the route from the one used during the previous two years.

Montenegro's main opposition alliance, the Democratic Front, on Tuesday rejected an offer from the speaker of parliament, Ranko Krivokapic, to start negotiations on organizing fair and free elections, saying a change of government had to come through mass protests.

The special prosecutor's office for organized crime in Montenegro on Wednesday examined two directors of the former state-owned Telekom firm in an apparent breakthrough in the unresolved Montenegrin Telekom bribery case.

The two men are suspected of stealing millions of euro during the sale of the company to Magyar Telekom.

Anti-government protesters will take to the streets of Podgrica again on Sunday, repeating their call for a transition government to replace Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic.