Montenegro has embarked seriously and responsibly on the talks with Serbia about the bases, the framework, and the direction of their future relations. These relations can only be based on:
The functions of the Commonwealth, which will define the make-up of the Commonwealth, will stem from the constitutions of the member states which will, in their mutual interest, transfer these functions to the Commonwealth.
On this basis Montenegro is proposing a platform for the talks about the future of the Commonwealth which should be formed to the mutual interest of the two countries and rooted in the historic and the current reality.
The character of the future Commonwealth
The departing basis for the new Commonwealth of Montenegro and Serbia lies in the unalienable right of its citizens to decide sovereignty about their state and national future. Only this can be the basis for the establishment of the mutual interest of the Commonwealth of Montenegro and Serbia.
Such a Commonwealth must safeguard the conditions that will allow democracy, the rule of the law, the economic development, and the integration into the European and international Commonwealth. This creates the preconditions for overcoming the blockade in mutual relations between the member states and the isolation within the international Commonwealth.
Montenegro and Serbia are joining in the Commonwealth through a consensus, aware of the mutual interest and usefulness of such an association, and creating a special structure within it that will be rooted in the principles and relations which they find acceptable.
'Republics must work together'
The new Commonwealth of Montenegro and Serbia should ensure a successful development of the two states in all realms of social life. Citizens, their associations, companies, and institutions should have a wide scope for the realisation of their interests and needs. Instead of the pyramid of the hierarchically positioned state bodies, which are becoming increasingly more bureaucratic and alienated, the new model of the Commonwealth of Montenegro and Serbia should provide a matrix for the joint decision-making based on the clear and easily applicable rules of conduct of the states.
Montenegro and Serbia, independent from one another in the issues of their state and national sovereignty, must function without centralisation in the realisation of their joint interests.
The only concept acceptable for the Commonwealth of Montenegro and Serbia is the one which as its basis assumes the constitutional position of the member-states as the original bearers of sovereignty which are delegating a portion of their powers, these powers being the ones that can be realised in the Commonwealth on an equal footing, rationally, and realistically .
The principles of the Commonwealth
The principles of the Commonwealth are:
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