Montenegro will hold a referendum on independence from Serbia on May 21, opposition parties said on Tuesday. The ruling parties declined to say officially that the date had been agreed but sources in the government confirmed it. Earlier reports had forecast an April referendum.
"It has been agreed to hold a referendum on May 21, 2006, and to postpone regular local elections until autumn, and to hold them together with a general election," said a statement by the three anti-independence opposition parties.
The statement was issued after both sides held talks with European Union envoy Miroslav Lajcak, who has been brokering an accord on the terms of the referendum. The terms and the date are to be endorsed by parliament on Wednesday and Thursday.
Montenegrins will be asked to decide whether to declare independence or remain linked to their much larger neighbour in the three-year-old State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, a body critics say is totally dysfunctional.
On Monday the pro-independence ruling party and the pro-union opposition agreed to EU-proposed referendum rules, which say 55 percent of over half the electorate must vote Yes to independence for the vote to be valid.
"Montenegro has sent Europe a very responsible and very European message and that is very good for Montenegro," Lajcak said. Serbia and Montenegro are all that is left of the six-member Yugoslav federation which broke up in war in the 1990s.
The EU persuaded them to stay together three years ago, fearing a split would create further instability in the Balkans. But it conceded Montenegro could ask its people this year to decide this year whether to stay in the union or break away.
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