President of the Board of Directors of state-owned power utility EPCG Milutin Djukanovic secretly held talks on the sale of the company, without the Government’s permission, said Montenegrin Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic. PM Krivokapic said that Djukanovic negotiated the sale of EPCG during his recent official visit to a neighboring country, without specifying which country it is. He reiterated the Government’s position that the state-owned power utility is not for sale.
President of the Board of Directors of Montenegrin state-owned power utility EPCG Milutin Djukanovic was in official visit to Serbia in early May, where he met several officials and discussed possible cooperation between the two countries in the energy sector.
Former Montenegrin Minister of Economy Dragica Sekulic warned that, back in 2015, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced the intentions of state-owned power utility EPS to acquire other power utilities in the region, primarily EPCG and ERS in the Republic of Srpska. She believes that it would be a bad move because Montenegro would become economically dependent on Serbia. She reminds that when a country loses its energy independence it also loses its economic independence, especially bearing in mind the state of the Montenegrin economy caused by the coronavirus pandemic. If weak tourist seasons are taken into account, the importance of the energy sector in a crisis situation like this becomes even greater.
In early 2021, Montenegrin media reported that the first move of the new management of state-owned power utility EPCG, which is expected to be appointed soon, will be the realization of the project for the construction of hydropower plant Komarnica, which will be given to Serbian power utility EPS. EPS has long been interested in the construction of HPP Komarnica, and the new management will refer to an alleged contract from the 1980s, which gives Serbia the right to build HPP Komarnica on the basis of research funding.
