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Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) in Montenegro

As a candidate country for joining the European Union, Montenegro has the obligation to harmonize its overall legislation with the EU Acquis. Having in mind that there is a significant number of existing laws that have to be amended, as well as those that are yet to be adopted, the state administration has to undergo a comprehensive reform in order to meet the challenge. Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) is one of the mechanisms that will be of great significance for the process of diminishing administrative ballast.

RIA is a method which is used in harmonizing laws and bylaws, indicating financial and material impact that the new legislation will have. It is applied before the law is adopted. This concept has been introduced in the USA, while its use on the European soil has been increasing ever since 2003, when it was implemented on the EU level. Unlike the countries of the region (Serbia and Macedonia) where RIA is applied only to draft laws, in Montenegro RIA will be applied to bylaws as well.

The purpose of this policy brief is to explain the concept of RIA, its significance and the practice of the countries of the region in its implementation. It will explain the challenges that our Government may face while implementing RIA. This brief also tries to open up a public debate about the benefits and effects that the implementation of this mechanism will have.

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Plan of parliamentary oversight should be adopted

Institute Alternative invited members of the Parliamentary Committee for Security and Defence to adopt the annual plan of parliamentary oversight, prescribed by the Law on Parliamentary Oversight of the Security and Defense Sector.

According to the Law, parliamentary oversight is performed regularly according to the annual plan adopted by the Committee and extraordinary, if necessary: “the Committee shall, by the end of the calendar year, adopt an annual plan of parliamentary oversight for the coming year”. Since the Law on Parliamentary Oversight of the Security and Defense Sector was adopted in late December 2010 and came into force in early January 2011, it was not realistic to expect the Committee preparing the plan of activities for 2011 at the same time. However, it should not be allowed that the Committee operates without the adopted plan for this year.

Government’s Agenda for the first 100 days and priority activities in 2011 can provide a starting basis for planning the activities of the Committee. There are numerous planned activities and priorities of the ministries, announced draft laws, rules and regulations as well as activities in the security and defense sector that require the Committee to engage in planning obligations under its own annual plan. Also, since the scope of the Committee’s competencies has extended and legally established, it is necessary to start careful planning in order to fulfill all the tasks before the Committee. These include consideration of annual and special reports of the subjects of oversight, monitoring and execution of budgets of these entities, monitoring the participation of the Army in peacekeeping missions and numerous other responsibilities.

The purpose of this plan is not to specify in detail all the possible actions of the Committee or specify their precise deadlines. Plan of parliamentary oversight is needed in order to form a framework for activities of the Committee, predict activity outside the regular sessions of the Parliament, drew up goals for this year, as well as create indicators upon which the work of the Committee could assessed at the end of the year.

Therefore we expect a responsible attitude toward the law adopted by consensus and commitments set forth by the MPs themselves. All the more reason is the obligation of preparing a calendar and schedule of parliamentary committees mentioned in the Action Plan of the Assembly to strengthen the legislative and oversight function, as one of the tasks for the first quarter of 2011.

Planning for the Board in the exercise of legislative and oversight role will offer MPs the opportunity to be better prepared for the responsibilities ahead of them and, in cooperation with the parliamentary service, their parliamentary clubs and party bodies, provide a greater contribution to the implementation of democratic control of defense and security sector.

The adoption of the plan will also create the necessary preconditions for civil society engagement in monitoring the work of the Committee and other forms of cooperation between the Committee and civil society.

Marko Sošić
Project associate

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Concession registry must be established

Institute Alternative states that it is necessary to establish a functional, on-line central registry of the concessions agreements as soon as possible. Even though this is as a legal requirement that has existed since February 2009, when the Concessions Act came into force (Article 15 of the Concessions Act, paragraph 5 of this Article specifies that “records of concession contracts are published on the website of the Commission”), a central register of contracts on concessions has not yet been established.

In addition to unjustified delay in the establishment of the registry that would facilitate keeping record of granted concessions, there is an issue of a number of bylaws for the concession area not being adopted yet. This remark applies to Article 61 (2) of the Concession Act: “type of activity that is the subject of the concession contract and the market conditions for its conduct.”

Likewise, the Law on Concessions is not fully compliant with relevant EU documents in this field: non-compliance of legislation is noticeable in the inaccurate definition of concessions for public works, and even the definitions of restricted procedures or competitive dialogue are not adequately transferred from the EU directive.

Public-private partnerships (PPP) will, according to an announcement from the Government, in the future represent the main instrument to battle the budget deficit. Taking into account all the advantages of this model, especially when one takes into account the budget deficit in Montenegro in the area of capital investment, this governmental policy is understandable.

However, past experience of state structures in concluding a contract under the PPP model as well as procedures for granting concessions indicate major deficiencies: access to information on concluded PPP contracts is extremely difficult, noticeable lack of democratic control, violation of legal procedures and favoring of certain private companies have been frequent phenomena.

In favor of better coordination and formation of a PPP expert core, IA believes that it is necessary to establish a specialized body for the PPP in Montenegro that would allow coordinated and controlled the action in this area. Positive experiences of EU countries and those in the region indicate the usefulness of the existence of such bodies.

Also, in addition to the central registry for the concession contracts, it is to make them all publicly available and create a national database of signed contracts. This database should provide access to periodic reports on implementation of the PPP, including financial reports on the implementation of the PPP, as well as plans for the annual repayment of debt of the public sector for PPP projects.

Jovana Marović
Senior research associate at Institute Alternativa