The EU - Western Balkans summit in Tivat, Montenegro, was meant to be a diplomatic exercise in smiles for the cameras. Aleksandar Vučić turned it into a sharp-toned performance, on ground that is anything but neutral for Serbia and Montenegro. Ten messages in one breath - and not one of them sounded like a man who came to smooth over a sour neighbourhood.

The loudest was the line on Kosovo: „We're not taking Montenegro from you; you're taking Kosovo from us,” repeating that Serbia will not accept Kosovo's independence. When a question is posed the same way for decades, at every summit, before every camera - does anyone really expect a diplomatic ritual to change it, or is everyone just playing their roles until the next meeting?

Vučić also touched on the 15 March unrest, claiming that around 2,000 Montenegrin citizens took part in an attempt to destabilise the constitutional order. He also put forward a figure that 135 people from Montenegro had been killed in Belgrade, stressing that these were criminals, not citizens. Figures thrown into the air as an argument - but who has checked them, and why are they being put on the table precisely now?

The personal defence wasn't missing either: he claims he has no bank accounts, villas or boats in Montenegro, and that he always feels safe thanks to professional protection. Still, he closed his performance with an economic card that's hard to ignore - Serbia accounts for 57.1 percent of the Western Balkans' exports to the EU. Translated: you may not like me, but you can't bypass me. In the Balkans, that very sentence is the most honest of all ten.