Montenegro is now on the right track towards EU membership, but it should advance hand-in-hand with its organised civil society

Statement by Decebal-Ștefăniță PADURE and Gordana ĐUROVIĆ, co-chairs of the EU-Montenegro Civil Society Joint Consultative Committee (JCC)

We commend the tangible recent efforts that the government and the parliament of Montenegro took to fulfill remaining interim benchmarks set out in Rule of Law Chapters 23 and 24 in order to receive a positive Interim Benchmark Assessment Report (IBAR) from the European Commission and the Council of the EU. We are aware that IBAR would be an important milestone in the accession negotiations of Montenegro with the EU since it would allow the start of the next phase of negotiations focused on the closing of clusters and chapters.

On more than one occasion our EU-Montenegro Civil Society Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) reminded all parliamentary parties and all political actors in Montenegro that citizens expect them to work together and to overcome their differences so that Montenegro can undertake and implement vital reforms and earn its place in the EU. Although we are glad that work in order to deliver swiftly on laws and reforms was accelerated, we remind Montenegrin authorities that it is of crucial importance to genuinely and effectively involve organised civil society – social partners and civil society organisations – in all aspects of policy-making and in EU accession negotiations, including in the implementation of the Reform Agenda.

In this context, we expressed concern about the recently adopted Law on Prevention of Corruption. We call on the authorities of Montenegro to swiftly amend it in accordance with amendments proposed by the civil society. We remind the Montenegrin authorities and the European Commission that in the recommendations of the last three joint declarations from the EU-Montenegro JCC meetings we called for the introduction of a provision that exempts representatives of social partners and CSOs who are members of the working groups and other bodies, as well as management bodies, from being treated as public officials solely because they have been formally appointed by the government. This is in contradiction with their mission as non-governmental and non-profit organizations and may prevent the representatives of organised civil society from applying to become members of such bodies in the future.

We also take this opportunity to call once again on the government to do everything in its power to establish and give a prominent role to the Council for Cooperation between Government Institutions and NGOs or an alternative dialogue structure to monitor the implementation of the Law on NGOs and the Strategy for cooperation with NGOs

Members of our JCC believe that the degree to which the government cooperates with organised civil society can be considered one of the indicators of the degree of democratic achievement of a society. They believe that organised civil society, as a bridge between citizens and politicians, should be genuinely seen as strategic partner in the development of reforms and the implementation of public policies and in achieving the ambitious goal of Montenegro becoming the 28th EU Member State by 2028.

The EU-Montenegro Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) is a civil society platform established between the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and organised civil society in Montenegro (social partners and other civil society organisations). It complements, with a civil society point of view, the EU institutional framework related to the accession talks between the EU and Montenegro and adopts recommendations for the attention of the government of Montenegro and the EU institutions.