Time was when Italian investigators were rather keen to sit down with Milo Djukanovic and ask him about his alleged connections to organised crime. More recently, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi dropped in to see the prime minister of Montenegro in what was interpreted, correctly or not, as an endorsement for the March 29 elections.

Italy’s past interest had to do with Djukanovic’s alleged, and denied, involvement with cigarette smuggling and illegal banking schemes. (Banking controversies seem to follow him; last December, as the credit crunch took hold, the Montenegrin government paid a 44 million euro bailout for a bank partly owned by Djukanovic, his brother and sister).

Attempts by Italy to charge Djukanovic evaporated at the start of his current term as prime minister, and polls suggest that he will lead his coalition to victory and a return to office at the head of government after March 29.

In Montenegro’s capital Podgorica on March 17, Berlusconi enthused about his country’s ambitions to step up its investments in Montenegro, specifically in energy, tourism and transport.

His message probably was a welcome contrast to the economic uncertainties surrounding Montenegro, which has said it is considering asking the International Monetary Fund for up to 300 million euro as domestic growth projections plummet. Economic concerns were the catalyst for Montenegro’s early elections, being held less than halfway into the current parliament’s term.

Berlusconi said that he had been among the first to see that the correct solution for the countries of the Western Balkans was in European Union membership.

This last point was the crux of the conflicting messages about Montenegro of late. Germany and the Netherlands have blocked Montenegro’s process towards EU membership. German chancellor Angela Merkel has called for a "certain consolidation phase" before further EU expansion, while the Netherlands has indicated that beginning accession talks with Montenegro would be "premature".

European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, speaking in a March 11 European Parliament debate on a report on Macedonia, encouraged EU expansion to embrace the Western Balkans.

Macedonia also faces elections this month - presidential and local polls on March 22. Much like the parliamentary elections being held in Montenegro, and probably like any elections anywhere in Europe this year, key issues include relations with the EU and the financial crisis.

In Macedonia, however, even though the country at this stage appears capable of achieving a peaceful voting process and appears poised to elect "pro-Western" presidential candidate Georgi Ivanov, nominated by prime minister Nikola Gruevski’s Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation - Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE), could still face its EU hopes being blocked unless it resolves its dispute with Greece over the use of the name Macedonia.

Macedonia has been an EU membership candidate for more than three years but has yet to secure a date for the start of membership negotiations.

This is among factors that have led to scepticism about politicians’ promises, going by local media reports. On March 17, Skopje daily Dnevnik said that the number of undecided voters was going up as the March 22 voting day approached, while on the same day Utrinski Vesnik hit out at Ivanov for being vague in his statements on the campaign trail and in his replies to questions.

Opinion polls on March 12 said that while Ivanov had just more than 23 per cent support, in second place was Imer Selmani, of the New Democracy party, an ethnic Albanian grouping. In third place was Ljubomir Frckovski, nominated by the centre-left Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), the party that is the lineal successor to the League of Communists of Macedonia, which ruled the country for the decades it was a constituent republic within Yugoslavia.

If Macedonia’s March 22 presidential elections do not produce a decisive result, there will be a runoff on April 5.