Serbian PM 'confident' ahead of Montenegro vote

Serbia’s prime minister Vojislav Kostunica has said he is convinced that Montenegrins will vote in favour of a two-state union in Sunday's referendum.

Montenegro’s 500,000 citizens are due to vote on independence from Serbia this Sunday.

Kostunica said he would accept the independence of Montenegro should that be the outcome of the referendum.

But in an interview with German daily Handelsblatt, he claimed: “I am strongly convinced that the vote will be in favour of maintaining the Serbia-Montenegro union.”

EU officials have announced that Montenegro needs 55 percent of voters to cast ballots in favour of an independent state.

Kostunica told the paper that he expects all parties to adhere to that benchmark.

And speaking to Serbia’s state-controlled radio-television, Kostunica said he was offering Montenegrins a “brotherly hand to build on an equal footing our joint and European future.”

Montenegro's government has argued that the three-year-old union with Serbia is “inefficient and dysfunctional”.

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