Russia Imposes Visas on Montenegrins: The Road to Brussels Runs Through a Closed Door to Moscow

The agreement was signed on 24 September 2008, and for eighteen years it let Montenegrins and Russians travel without a visa. It ends on 30 December. From that day citizens of Montenegro will only be able to enter Russia with a visa, on any type of passport, the Russian embassy in Podgorica said. How to get a visa, they say, can be found on its website.

Moscow makes no secret of the sequence. Podgorica was first to announce that from 1 November it would require visas from Russian citizens, and officially notified Russia that it was withdrawing from the agreement. The Russian embassy took the date of that notification and calculated the end of the visa-free regime. The embassy said it would "strictly" adhere to the agreement, and everyone in the Balkans understands that without a translator: you to me, I to you.

Russians aren't alone on the list. From 1 November citizens of Belarus, Turkey, China and Saudi Arabia will also need a visa to enter Montenegro, unless they meet the conditions for an exemption. The government in Podgorica made the decision in July, and the reason is there in black and white: aligning visa policy with European Union rules, one of the obligations in the accession process.

The European path in the Balkans is usually measured in chapters, reports and praise from Brussels. In Montenegro from now on it's also measured in stamps in a passport. Anyone with work, relatives or studies in Russia will stand at a counter where a passport used to be enough. Podgorica knew that when it made the decision. Did it tell its citizens as loudly as it told Brussels?

Brussels will record this as progress, Moscow recorded it as a move that has to be answered. Montenegro picked a door and closed the other. Who in the Balkans will have to choose next - and will anyone ask those who'll be waiting at the counter?