Montenegro and the EBRD Open a New Era: What the €215 Million Investment Means for Spanish Investors

The EBRD's record investment in Montenegro signals a shift in Balkan infrastructure, energy, and digitalization — and Spanish companies are positioned to lead.

PODGORICA — Montenegro and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) have announced a €215 million investment package in infrastructure, energy, and digitalization. It is the largest annual injection from the bank into the country. But the story is not the money. It is what the money reveals about the moment Montenegro is living through — and the question no one dares to ask aloud.

In 2025, the EBRD invested €215 million across 18 projects in Montenegro. That is not just any record: it is the highest volume and the largest number of projects since the bank began operating here. Half of that amount went to the green transition — grid digitalization, energy efficiency, renewables. Two-thirds of the projects included gender equality and economic inclusion criteria.

Behind the numbers lies a message: Montenegro is using international investment as a tool to rewrite its own narrative. And the EBRD, with its new five-year strategy to be approved in September, has decided to bet big on it.

The flagship project is the continuation of the Bar–Boljare highway, specifically the Mateševo–Andrijevica section. The EBRD is providing a €200 million loan; the EU, a €150 million grant — the largest it has ever awarded to Montenegro. The highway will connect the port of Bar with the Serbian border, integrating the underdeveloped north of the country into the trans-European transport networks.

It is not just a road. It is a statement of intent. Around it, the package includes the Podgorica bypass, the modernization of the Bar–Golubovci railway, and the digitalization of the electricity grid.

The expansion of the Gvozd wind farm, with an additional €26 million loan, will increase its capacity from 55 to 75 megawatts. It will become the country's largest wind farm, producing clean energy for more than 35,000 households per year.

Ekaterina Solovova will take over on September 1 as the new Head of the EBRD Office in Montenegro. She comes from Albania, where she led investments of €900 million across more than 90 projects. She has two decades of experience in development finance.

Her appointment is not a bureaucratic handover. It is the EBRD's bet on someone who knows the terrain and understands that the real challenge is not signing agreements, but making projects materialize.

Montenegro is doing many things right. But the question a Balkan newspaper must ask is the one no one voices in press conferences: what happens when projects meet reality?

The Bar–Boljare highway is a pharaonic project with years of delays and cost overruns. The contractor for the Mateševo–Andrijevica section is China's POWERCHINA-STECOL, with a €694 million contract for five years of work. The question is not whether the road will be built — it will — but at what cost, in what timeframe, and with what impact on public debt.

Montenegro is not just Montenegro. It is the country that has advanced furthest on the EU path in the entire region. What happens here — successes and failures — is read in Sarajevo, in Belgrade, in Skopje as a dress rehearsal for the future.

If Montenegro manages to execute this package without deviations, if the highway is completed, if the wind turbines turn, if fiber optics reach the north, the EBRD will have proven its model works. If it fails, it will be a reminder that in the Balkans, international loans are not enough. Something harder to finance is needed: institutional capacity, political continuity, and above all, time.