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Announcement: Seminar on police integrity

Announcement: Seminar “Priorities and responsibilities in fostering police integrity in Montenegro” – September 25th 2014

Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mission to Montenegro, in close cooperation with the Ministry of Interior, the Parliament of Montenegro and Institute Alternative, are organising seminar on police integrity on September 25th to offer all stakeholders and partners a platform for reflection and dialogue about the achievements, the current challenges and the way forward to further strengthen and maintain police integrity in Montenegro.

Take a look at the Agenda of the event here.

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Message from the NATO summit: Intensified and focused talks with Montenegro

Commentary for BIRN on prospects of Montenegro’s membership in NATO after the NATO summit in Wales, held on September 4-5, 2014.

The burning issues in Montenegro still remain the rule of law and the necessity of building integrity institutions in combating corruption and organized crime. Alongside these issues, the reform of the security and intelligence sector has also been set as a serious, and not only declarative condition for receiving the invitation for NATO membership and we should take advantage of this integration process. However, it is necessary that the NATO specifically formulates the mandatory outcomes in this area, in order for the following year to be used for the activities of the Government and the judiciary in this regard.

One should not have any doubts whether the decision on the invitation to join NATO is a political decision, which, among other things, is a reflection of the geopolitical situation – as confirmed by all previous waves of enlargement, during which countries of varying degrees of reform of the system of defense and security were accepted. Let me point out to the examples of Albania and Croatia, bearing in mind that the latter was accepted with Sanader as the Prime Minister at the time when the reform of the Croatian intelligence sector was not completed.

Additionally, one needs to be realistic about the level of implemented reforms required for the membership to NATO, because, unfortunately, the level that meets NATO’s criteria cannot and must not be satisfactory for citizens of Montenegro. Security and defense sector reforms implemented in the framework of the MAP were indeed dynamic, but the nature of the reforms NATO is focused on is more concentrated on the functionality of the system and synchronization with other NATO member states, i.e. interoperability, rather than the internal accountability, transparency and ideological neutrality. And those are precisely the problems of our security and defense sector.

In other words, I do not believe that the key reason for postponing the invitation for membership was dissatisfaction with the level of implemented reforms since the requirements are not that demanding and the sector in question has rather small capacities to be considered problematic. On the other hand, Montenegro’s sincerity and commitment to the Euro-Atlantic family needs to be retested and confirmed, keeping in mind the relations with Russia, as well as slightly less than a half of the Montenegrin population that opposes membership to NATO.

Dina Bajramspahić

Public Policy Researcher

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Press release: Deputy chairman of the Committee for Security and Defence must be appointed

Parliamentary opposition does not have a representative in the National Security Council, after having failed to appoint a deputy chairman of the Committee for Security and Defense from its own lines for over five years.

The Law on the Basis of the Intelligence and Security Sector prescribes the composition of the National Security Council. Among others, it comprises also the chair and deputy chairman of the Committee for Security and Defense. However, at the yesterday’s session, the Government adopted a decision on the appointment of the Council members, which did not include the deputy chairman of the Committee for Security and Defense, but only the chairman.

Council for National Security has, albeit insufficiently regulated, important responsibilities for coordination of intelligence and security sector, improving the exchange of information between departments and policy formulation in this area.

In accordance with the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, Deputy Chairman of the Committee for Defense And Security is elected from the ranks of the opposition political parties. However, the opposition is failing to reach an agreement on this issue since 2009 and the Committee is working without a Deputy Chairman for over five years now.

The position of the deputy chairman is very important, bearing in mind the competences of the Committee in the field of democratic and civilian control of the security and defense sector. The position bears additional responsibility to initiate a proactive use of control mechanisms behalf of the opposition, to monitor the state authorities of the sector which, by their nature, are prone to abuse because of the repressive powers at their disposal.

Opposition is giving very harsh assessments of the reforms of the security sector and defense that, and the fact is that this sector is still burdened by a number of unresolved issues. It is therefore necessary to have a greater participation of the Committee on Security and Defense in creating a better framework for the functioning of institutions of the sector and frequent application of the parliamentary oversight, especially when it comes to control and consultative hearings, visits to institutions, requests for information, surveillance measures of secret surveillance, etc.

We commend the provision of the Law on the Basis of the Intelligence and Security Sector that introduces an obligation for the National Security Council to report to the Parliament (Committee for Security and Defense) every two months. This established parliamentary oversight over the work of the Council and honors the principles of separation and balance of power.

Dina BAJRAMSPAHIĆ
Researcher

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EU Integration and Party Politics in the Balkans

European Policy Centre, a Brussel-based think tank, has just published a study “EU integration and party politics in the Balkans”, with contribution from IA’s Jovana Marović and Marko Sošić (Chapter on Montenegro: “European Integration and Party Politics in Montenegro”).

This study highlights the interplay between EU integration and national politics in the region, and that both are consequential for the quality of Balkan democracies, as well as reminiscent of the Western and Central and Eastern European experience. Distrust in representative institutions and disengagement from political life runs dramatically high among the people of the Balkan countries, and this generalised sense of dissatisfaction is starting to breed cynicism also towards the idea of a better future inside the Union.

Apart from Montenegro, the study contains chapters on Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Besides IA’s Jovana Marović and Marko Sošić, authors of the study are EPC’s Corina Stratulat as well as Igor Bandović, Odeta Barbullushi, Simonida Kacarska, Andrew Konitzer, Marko Vujačić and Bodo Weber.

Read the entire study here

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Government to get used to a more active role of the Parliament

Taking into account the quantitative indicators on the work of the Parliament during 2014, it could be concluded that its oversight role has improved to certain extent. A number of conducted consultative and control hearings, adopted conclusions, as well as questions asked to the Prime Minister and the members of the Government, confirm this conclusion. For instance, in the first half of 2014, 6 control and 20 consultative hearings have been held, while in the same period last year, 3 control and 8 consultative hearings were conducted.

Assessment that the Parliament “is showing” a greater degree of commitment to encourage the reform process, oversee the activities of the Government, and be an active participant in the negotiation process, is confirmed by the implementation level of the measures from the Action Plan related to strengthening legislative and oversight role of the Parliament. Only 2 out of 45 measures foreseen to be realized by the end of June 2014 are not implemented. All the information regarding the activities of MPs, along with the financial data, is presented to interested parties in a timely and transparent manner. Additional initiatives by MPs, aiming at establishing special working groups tasked to work on certain legal solutions, as is the case with the Anti-Corruption Law, need to be emphasized, especially when taken into consideration the importance of this particular law.

However, there are a number of obstacles that continue to significantly impede the Parliament from performing its oversight role. It often occurs that the Government “forgets” or ignores the conclusions of the Parliament. Institute Alternative has pointed out to this problem on several occasions, like when it comes to submitting reports on the budget revenues during the first half of 2014. Furthermore, conclusions of the Parliament should be more specific and precise, in order for the implementation level to be assessed more adequately, along with the Government’s commitment to the realization of what Parliament deems necessary, as well as the contribution of the Parliament to resolving certain issues/problems. Since state authorities have the practice of submitting information requested by the competent authorities and the information on realization of the conclusions of the Parliament at different rates, a more precise regulation is desirable. This particularly refers to the process of reporting on the implementation of the conclusions of the Parliament done at the regular basis and not at the request of the Committee.

Committees in charge of fight against corruption and organized crime, primarily committees on security and defense and anti-corruption, should further intensify their activities. During 2013, opposition representatives in the Security and Defence Committee have conducted neither of the two control hearings to which they were entitled. The Anti-Corruption Committee has not yet established procedure for reviewing complaints submitted by the interested parties, hence it is necessary to define it as soon as possible. It is also necessary to regulate reviewing of documents in the area of fight against corruption and organized crime by this Committee.

Contrary to the claims of the Prime Minister, the Parliament does not act beyond its jurisdiction, it is actually just starting to exercise it. The Parliament is examining the budget more seriously, rejecting amendments to the budget, supervising the work of the Government, requesting additional reports and information, influencing the content of laws, and, therefore, does not serve only to put a seal on the acts of the Government. This is what the Parliament should be doing and what the Government needs to get used to.

Institute Alternative, with the support of the Open Society Foundations – Think Tank Fund, implements the project “Analytical Monitoring of the Oversight Function of the Parliament”, which aims to strengthen the impact of implementation of the parliamentary control mechanisms.

Jovana MAROVIĆ
Research Coordinator