The road to the EU is rarely free - and Montenegro is now learning that firsthand. According to regional sources, Zagreb has set eight conditions before Podgorica regarding accession to the Union, a list that reopens old wounds from the nineties and tests how much a small country is willing to pay for membership.

The demands are concrete and heavy. Among them: reparations for alleged Croatian prisoners in Montenegrin camps, finding persons missing from the conflicts, prosecuting war crimes, returning hundreds of properties of the Croatian minority in the Bay of Kotor, and handing over the ship „Jadran," a former vessel of the Yugoslav navy. The list also includes defining the maritime border near Prevlaka and preserving the disputed memorial site at Morinj.

Each of these conditions is in itself a complex, two-sided question - and that's exactly where caution is warranted. When one neighbor sets a long list of demands before another that has no choice but to listen, the line between a legitimate historical question and political pressure grows thin. Zagreb has the right to demand accountability for the past; but a list that comes as a condition for European membership always carries a message about power, not just about justice.

The leader of the Serbs in Montenegro, Milan Knežević, called the ultimatum humiliating for Podgorica. On the other side, Croatian representatives see it as the fulfillment of obligations long overdue. The truth, as usual in the Balkans, isn't entirely on either side.

And Macedonia watches this with a familiar feeling. How many times was our own road to the EU conditioned on demands from a neighbor - names, identities, history packed into negotiating chapters? The Balkans know this scene well: a small country at the Union's door, and the condition that always comes from someone already inside. The question isn't whether Montenegro will pay - it's how much, and what's left of one's dignity when you settle the bill.