标签： Europe

This week, the small Balkan nation of Montenegro is holding nationwide celebrations to commemorate two decades of full independence following its split from the state union with Serbia. Over the past 20 years, the country has already achieved one major strategic milestone by joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and now it is laser-focused on its next ambitious goal: full integration into the European Union.

In an interview with the Associated Press on the sidelines of national independence festivities, Montenegrin President Jakov Milatovic framed NATO membership as a defining achievement for the young nation. He expressed unwavering confidence that Montenegro, a country with a total population of just 623,000, will meet its target of becoming the 28th member of the 27-nation EU by 2028. This goal has become so central to the country’s national agenda that the motto “28 by 28” has even been painted on the fuselage of one of Montenegrin national airline’s aircraft. “We can achieve it,” Milatovic stated from his office in the capital Podgorica. “I am optimistic about it.”

Known for its dramatic, turquoise Adriatic coastline and rugged, towering mountain ranges, Montenegro is hosting concerts, community events and formal celebrations across Podgorica and smaller towns throughout the country this week to mark the historic anniversary of the 2006 independence referendum.

The path to independence was far from unified two decades ago. After a decade of regional conflict that accompanied the dissolution of Yugoslavia, capped by the 1999 NATO bombing campaign to end the Kosovo War, Montenegro held its independence referendum on May 21, 2006. The final result was narrow: 55.5% of voters backed splitting from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro to form an independent Montenegrin state.

The split exposed deep divisions across the country, given Montenegro’s centuries-long cultural, political and social ties to Serbia. Roughly one-third of the population identifies as ethnically Serb, the two nations share the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith, their languages are mutually intelligible, and they have a long history of political alliance. The independence movement was led by longtime Montenegrin leader Milo Djukanovic, who guided the country into NATO and shifted its geopolitical alignment away from Russia, another historic Slavic ally.

Milatovic emphasized that the 2006 referendum put Montenegrins in control of their own future, laying the groundwork for all progress that has followed. “The major progress probably happened when the country became a part of NATO in 2017,” he added. “Being a part of NATO for a small country like Montenegro is very important because NATO is indeed a security guarantee for our independence and statehood.”

Today, Montenegro stands as the leading candidate for EU accession among the six Western Balkan nations that are at varying stages of the membership process. The EU has already established a specialized working group to draft Montenegro’s accession treaty, a clear signal that membership is within tangible reach. EU leaders are expected to reaffirm their support for Western Balkan integration at a summit of candidate country leaders to be held in the coastal Montenegrin town of Tivat in early June, where delegates from Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo will also gather. Multiple other countries, including Ukraine, also hold candidate status and aim to join the bloc in the coming years.

Milatovic noted that public support for EU membership in Montenegro remains very high, hovering around 80%. However, he acknowledged that the country still needs to complete a series of key democratic and economic reforms, and the speed of progress moving forward “is now entirely up to Montenegro.”

Challenges remain substantial on the road to accession, according to Jovana Marovic, Montenegro’s former European integration minister. The country has been an official EU candidate since 2010, and a top unmet priority is strengthening democratic state institutions to meet EU standards. “What was missing in the last 14 years, we have to provide now just in six months,” she said. “So it’s really demanding, but the process is going on.”

For ordinary Montenegrin citizens, improving economic conditions and raising living standards are the most pressing priorities. While Montenegro has already adopted the euro as its national currency and made significant democratic strides, its economy remains small and disproportionately reliant on the seasonal tourism industry. Zorana Popivoda, a 28-year-old Montenegrin, praised the restoration of independence but echoed widespread economic frustration: “then you go into a store and you see that you can buy absolutely nothing.”

Milatovic, a 39-year-old economist who took office in 2023, criticized previous administrations for failing to move faster on democratic reforms and crack down on endemic organized crime and corruption in the early years of independence. “I think that over the last 20 years, we can objectively say that the country experienced progress,” he said, “but also that Montenegro had a number of missed opportunities.” Moving forward, the president’s administration is committed to meeting the 2028 accession target and delivering tangible improvements to the lives of all Montenegrin citizens.

As the United States marks 250 years of formal independence from British rule, a year-long, on-the-ground survey of British public opinion by The Associated Press across the country — stretching from George Washington’s ancestral estates near the Scottish border to the urban hubs of Cambridge, Bristol, and London — reveals a striking, unanimous conclusion: it is impossible to talk about contemporary America without centering its 47th President, Donald Trump. The reporting found that even Britons who back some of Trump’s policy positions frame their entire view of the U.S. around his tenure, and his influence has reshaped the centuries-old “special relationship” between the two nations.

When asked “What do you think of America now?”, nearly every respondent opened with a deliberate pause before turning to coded or direct commentary on Trump and his second term. Phrases like “Your president…” and “The current state of politics…” are the universal opening, a pattern that itself reveals how deeply Trump has skewed British views of their former colony. “It’s Trump’s world now, isn’t it?” noted Mark Keightley, a printer technician working in Cambridge, roughly an hour north of London.

Eddie Boyle, a resident of Falkirk, Scotland, speaking while crossing London’s Westminster Bridge, summed up a common sentiment: “My own opinion of America is now dictated by the president and he’s not covering himself in glory as far as I’m concerned. It’s a shame that such a long arrangement between the two countries has been tarnished.”

Disappointment among Britons with the direction of the American experiment is not a new trend. As far back as 1842, famed British author Charles Dickens left his widely celebrated U.S. lecture tour — where he earned a substantial fortune from public readings — frustrated and disappointed by the young nation. Outraged by the continuation of chattel slavery, which Britain had abolished a decade earlier in 1833, Dickens also condemned what he saw as a debased American press, calling it more “mean, and paltry, and silly, and disgraceful than any country I ever knew.” He famously wrote to a friend, “This is not the Republic I came to see. This is not the Republic of my imagination. In every respect but that of National Education, the Country disappoints me.”

Over two and a half centuries, the U.S.-U.K. relationship has evolved through multiple defining turning points that cemented America’s status as a global power. The War of 1812, a rematch of the Revolutionary War, ended in a stalemate but proved the young nation could hold its own against British military and economic power, establishing it as a permanent global actor. The U.S. survival through its Civil War, followed by its critical role in helping Britain defeat Nazi Germany in World War II, solidified the alliance. Decades later, the close partnership between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher helped bring about the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, a joint achievement still recognized by many Brits today. “They did something great there,” said Maria Miston of Suffolk, speaking near London’s Big Ben. “They actually managed to bring the Cold War to an end.” Still, Miston argued that America’s global standing has declined steadily since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq: “We’ve just gone backwards since then.”

In Trump’s second term, the decades-old “special relationship” has undergone a fundamental reorientation. Trump has had a tense relationship with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, dismissing him publicly as “not Winston Churchill” after Starmer refused to commit British forces to a U.S. conflict with Iran. The president has repeatedly suggested he views King Charles III, not the elected prime minister, as his equal peer. Last year, Trump accepted an unprecedented second state visit invitation from the king, which included a state dinner at Windsor Castle, and he welcomed Charles for a return visit to Washington earlier this year. During his U.S. trip, Charles emphasized that the 250-year bilateral relationship “is more important today than it has ever been,” while also making a public case for the importance of democratic checks and balances — widely interpreted as an implicit rebuke of Trump. The White House drew international attention when it posted on social media describing the pair as “TWO KINGS,” a jab likely aimed at the anti-monarchy “No Kings” rallies that drew large crowds across the U.S. during Charles’ visit. The irony was not lost on Britons: the U.S. was founded on the rejection of monarchy, specifically rule by King George III, Charles’ five-times great-grandfather. Back in the U.K., pre-visit polling showed majority public opposition to Charles’ U.S. trip, but the king’s performance won broad praise as a deft display of soft power, even amid well-documented tensions over climate policy and Trump’s repeated playful (yet provocative) threat to annex Canada — a Commonwealth realm where Charles is head of state. Rock star Rod Stewart summed up a common British view when he told Charles at a May gala, within earshot of reporters: “May I say, well done in the Americas. You were superb, absolutely superb, put that little rat bag in his place.”

National polling confirms that British views of the U.S. have soured sharply during Trump’s second term. A Gallup poll conducted in late 2025 found just 28% of British adults approve of U.S. global leadership, with 68% holding a negative view. That number is roughly on par with approval during Trump’s first term, and far lower than the 45% approval recorded during Democratic President Joe Biden’s tenure. Pew Research Center’s 2025 Spring Global Attitudes Survey echoes this shift: while two-thirds of British adults held a favorable view of the U.S. in the first two years of Biden’s presidency, that number fell to 54% by spring 2024, and sits at just 50% in 2025. This is not the first period of strain between the two nations: the 1956 Suez Crisis marked a defining shift, when British power declined and American global dominance became the new global order, and a decade later London rejected U.S. pressure to join the Vietnam War.

For decades, following American politics has functioned as a national spectator sport in Britain, a way to watch the world’s oldest modern democracy evolve from across the Atlantic. Today, Britons still acknowledge a long list of American qualities they admire: national ambition, unprecedented economic wealth, unmatched military power, the sheer scale of the country, its global cultural output from television to music to film, and its political resilience even after crises like the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection. But alongside those positive perceptions are longstanding points of confusion and criticism. Topping the list for many is America’s persistent gun violence, which is nearly incomprehensible to Brits: the country banned private handgun ownership in 1997, after a mass shooting at a Scottish school that killed 16 children. Many Britons also express confusion at hardline U.S. immigration crackdowns, given the United States was founded by immigrants — even as the U.K. grapples with its own domestic debates over unauthorized migration.

On the 250th anniversary of American independence, Trump remains the central point of fascination and confusion for most British respondents. Discussing Trump is also a socially sensitive topic in the U.K., where Brexit has left deep political divisions and populist reform movements aligned with Trump’s agenda have gained ground in recent local elections. At The Cross Keys pub in Washington, England — a small town located just downhill from George Washington’s ancestral family home — local resident Mark Gibson sipped a pint and summed up the widespread confusion: “How can someone like that become president?” Gibson said he could rationalize the election of other American leaders, even when he disagreed with them, but Trump’s history of business bankruptcies and repeated legal scandals leave him bewildered. “I don’t understand it. He’s had bankruptcies and legal troubles,” Gibson said. “But, I guess that’s what people wanted. They elected him twice.”

A recent encounter between Russian fighter jets and a British Royal Air Force surveillance plane has escalated into what analysts are calling a serious diplomatic and security incident, shining a harsh new spotlight on the already frayed relations between Moscow and the Western military alliance NATO. BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner, a veteran reporter with deep expertise in Middle Eastern and European security affairs, has broken down how this intercept underscores the growing volatility between Russia and the transatlantic bloc.

While routine interceptions of military aircraft are not uncommon in international airspace near NATO and Russian borders, the parameters of this specific encounter have elevated it beyond standard protocol to an event that raises alarms about miscalculation and accidental escalation. Gardner’s analysis emphasizes that the incident is not an isolated event, but rather the latest in a steady pattern of increased military posturing and close encounters between Russian and NATO forces that have built up over recent years.

Tensions between Russia and NATO have remained at post-Cold War highs since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine, and surged to unprecedented levels following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Since that invasion, NATO has bolstered its eastern flank with additional troops, increased air patrols and maritime surveillance operations in regions bordering Russia, leading to a corresponding uptick in Russian interceptions of NATO aircraft. Each close encounter carries inherent risk: a misread maneuver, a miscommunication, or an accidental weapons discharge could quickly spiral into a full-blown conflict between the world’s largest nuclear powers, making even minor incidents a cause for grave international concern.

Gardner’s reporting frames this latest intercept as a clear indicator that neither side is backing down from its military posture, and that the risk of unintended conflict remains higher than it has been in decades. For Western security officials, the incident serves as a reminder of the need for maintained communication channels to de-escalate tense encounters, even as diplomatic relations between Russia and NATO remain all but frozen.

One of the most high-profile espionage trials in recent European history has concluded in Vienna, where a 63-year-old former senior Austrian intelligence official, Egisto Ott, has been found guilty on multiple charges including spying for Russia. The verdict delivered by a local jury has reignited widespread concern that Austria continues to act as a major hub for Russian intelligence activity in Western Europe.

Over the course of the proceedings, the court detailed nearly five years of illegal activity carried out by Ott between 2015 and 2020. Prosecutors laid out evidence that Ott abused his official position to pull classified information and large volumes of personal data from restricted Austrian police databases, all to support Russian intelligence operations at the expense of Austria’s national security. He passed this sensitive material to both Russian intelligence agents and Jan Marsalek, a fugitive former top executive at the collapsed German payments giant Wirecard, in exchange for undisclosed financial payments, the court confirmed.

Among the most damaging acts outlined in the trial was Ott’s procurement of a specialized laptop holding encrypted secure communication hardware used by European Union member states. Prosecutors confirmed the device was ultimately handed over directly to Russian intelligence services. In a separate incident, Ott also obtained the work phones of senior Austrian interior ministry officials after the devices were accidentally lost in the Danube River during an official ministry boating trip. He copied all data from the devices and passed the information to Marsalek and Russian intelligence handlers based in Moscow.

In addition to the espionage conviction, the jury found Ott guilty of misuse of public office, bribery, aggravated fraud, and breach of trust. He was handed a total prison sentence of four years and one month. Ott has consistently denied all charges against him, claiming he was not working for Russia but instead conducting a covert operation in partnership with a Western intelligence agency. His legal team has already filed an appeal against the verdict, extending the legal process for the high-profile case.

The case has thrown renewed attention on Jan Marsalek, an Austrian citizen who is one of Europe’s most wanted fugitives. Marsalek fled Germany via Austria in 2020 amid the collapse of Wirecard, which collapsed after a massive multi-year accounting fraud that saw the company inflate its balance sheets and sales figures by billions of euros. He is currently believed to be hiding out in Moscow, and is the subject of an Interpol Red Notice, meaning he can be arrested immediately if he steps into the territory of any of Interpol’s 196 member countries. Beyond his Wirecard fraud charges, Marsalek is also suspected of being a covert Russian intelligence asset, and is alleged to have overseen a network of Bulgarian spies convicted of spying for Russia in London in 2025.

When Ott was first taken into custody in 2024, then-Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer labeled the case a direct “threat to democracy and our country’s national security.” Today’s conviction has done little to ease those long-held concerns, with the scandal once again putting Austria under international scrutiny over its reputation as a hub for Russian espionage activity in Europe.