Abstract
The paper is dedicated to furthering the research into different aspects of Montenegrin sovereign status gained the Congress of Berlin, with a focus on the country’s financial sovereignty. Becoming an independent state had great historical significance for Montenegro, marking the realisation of the centuries-old aspirations for liberation. Still, exercising sovereign power proved challenging for Montenegro as the country was still an underdeveloped, agrarian country with a high percentage of illiterate population, scarce human resources and modest economic opportunities. Aside from this, there were still many congressional restrictions to exercising the rights acquired by gaining access to the sea. The author seeks to determine the reasons for the high level of indebtedness, as well as the decisions made in trying to resolve the challenges in maintaining the country’s financial sovereignty. The author also touches upon the broader subject of the role of gold standard in international trade and argues to which extent Montenegro was able to adhere to this internationally accepted standard, having established its banking institutions and having introduced its own currency. Considering that this paper is a part of the scientific research work on the project ‘Montenegro on the political and cultural map of Europe’ (CLIO MAP), exhibiting the reasons for minting the first Montenegrin coin is but a way to examine a segment in exibiting the country’s sovereign status acquired at the Congress of Berlin.
Highlights
With international admission acquired at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Montenegro received all attributes of a sovereign country, as well as equal legal status with other members of the international community
The issuing of the first Montenegrin coin was not done through the banking system, as there were no the issuing banks, but this was performed in accordance with the Article 10 of the Constitution of the Principality of Montenegro, which stated: “The Prince is entitled to mint money.”
Once the minted money arrived in Cetinje by means of a communication made by the Ministry of Finance of August 28/September 10, the Montenegrin money was released and the customs offices were ordered to make exchange for Austrian small change – heller – which used to circulate in Montenegro
Summary
287 RADOSL AV RASPOPOVIĆ | I N D E BT EDNESSANDTHEROAD TO M O N ETA RY SOVEREIGNTYFOLLOWINGTHE. Even a few decades following its independence, Montenegro failed to establish coherent monetary policy and decisively claim its monetary sovereignty, seizing its sovereign rights to regulate all matters in regard to possible implementation of a national currency in the economic life of the state. The reasons preventing it from doing so were of realistic and objective nature and concerned the low level of development, small scale of trading, underdeveloped industry and crafts, and so on. General economic backwardness and poverty, along with the poorly developed trading relations, conditioned the low degree of capital accumulation, so the requests for loans abroad were necessary in order to acquire financial resources
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