Month: October 2021

Recommendations and priorities noted in the European Commission’s Report on Montenegro, the Government must translate into a concrete action plan, which would outline a clear responsibility of each member of the Government, as well as of other institutions, either for successes or failures in its implementation.

Recently published Report of the European Commission on Montenegro has showed that the process of European integration stagnated in the last year. Tapping in place is the best reflected in the fact that in many as 30 of the 33 chapters, only “limited progress“ has been identified. No backsliding has been identified in any area this year either, although the Functioning of Judiciary, as a special aspect under Chapter 23, has been assessed worse than in the last year (with no progress compared to limited progress).

Such assessment should be an alarm to the current Government that it is necessary to have more serious approach to the messages stated in this Report, and to concretise the obligations presented to us on our European path. In addition, it is necessary that all political stakeholders show a will for a constructive dialogue about main appointments in judiciary, given the fact that it is the key priority on which depends progress in the negotiations.

The best and most efficient way for the Government is to articulate the European Commission’s recommendations into a concrete action-oriented plan of the Government, the Parliament and other responsible independent institutions. The Plan must clearly outline the tasks, deadlines, but also responsibility either for successes or failures of individual departments and people who manage them. The revised methodology for accession process also predicts intergovernmental conferences after publishing annual reports, in order to set priorities for the next year and take corrective measures in relation to the situation identified in the reports. This is why the Government should show proactivity and readiness to address priorities, and what is equally important, to share these plans with Montenegrin citizens, who strongly support Montenegro’s accession to the European Union (EU).

As a strong statement of political will and devotion to the EU integration process, it is especially significant that the Government relies on the state budget for implementation of the Plan’s priority activities, without waiting for donors and foreign support and funds.

In addition to showing political will, an additional argument is the fact that one of the problems characteristic for the accession process so far has been the lack of information on coordination, contracting and implementation of projects implemented by the Government or state institutions which are financed from the pre-accession funds of the European Union. Hiding the defined obligations from such programs, as well as information about their implementation, also makes it impossible to hold accountable the heads of institutions that use the EU funds. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the transparency of the EU funding by preparing and publishing the Government’s special reports on the implementation of these projects, thus enabling the public to monitor the dynamics of the implementation of these projects.

Once a month, the Government should prepare reports on the implementation of the action plan, i.e. recommendations from EC report, and inform the public about the results. Moreover, at each session of the Government, one of the key, if not the first item on the agenda, should be the ministers’ presentation of the fulfillment of obligations outlined in the plan. This is the only way to ensure continuous scrutiny and monitoring of the implementation of the plan, both by the Government, the Parliament and the general public, which would, eventually, lead to concrete results.

Such plan, besides concretising obligations and centralising responsibility, should also serve as a kind of self-assessment of the Government’s work and all their members, while remaining in theirs positions would strongly depend on the successful implementation of the obligations from the plan.

We remind you that the current mechanisms for monitoring the fulfilment of obligations from the European agenda have not proved to be particularly effective. Report on the implementation of the Government’s Working Program is lacking, and according to the data we collected, 63% of the legal proposals planned for the first three quarters of this year the Government did not send to the parliamentary procedure by mid-October. On the other side, semi-annual reports on overall activities within the integration process which the Government prepares and sends to the Parliament are not focused on the main identified problems and EC’s annual recommendations, (from one yearly report to another). These reports only address the obligations from the Accession Program, which is a longer-term Government document (currently in force 2021-2023). It only reports on what has been implemented, but does not show what has not been done, while it also contains information on peer review missions, meetings of state officials with EU officials, as well as other information that diverts focus from the obligations which the county failed to implement.

 Awareness of possible dismissal due to non-delivery of results would create additional pressure and prevent the neglect of Montenegro’s European obligations by certain departments, which was also recognised as a problem in the recently published Report of the European Commission.

Stevo Muk
President of the Managing Board

Another Year of ”Tapping in Place”

The European Commission’s  report confirmed that the much needed radical reforms are a victim of political cleavages; the messages should be understood as a strong call for all stakeholders, especially political parties, to dedicate themselves to the tasks of European integration.

If the assessments from the report are translated to a numerical scale from 1 to 5, Montenegro’ s results are once again limited: the average score of progress this year is the lowest in the last six years and is 3.03 (compared to 3.18 last year). On the other hand, the assessment of overall state of play or preparedness is the best so far and amounts to 3.11 (compared to 3.08 last year).

European Commission’s methodology from 2015 includes two levels of assessment – ‘’state of play’’ and ‘’assessment of progress’’. The first level refers to assessing the overall situation in the areas covered by chapters, while the second level is focused on a separate assessment of the progress made over the past 12 months, ie. since the publication of the previous report. Possible estimates for the state of play are “early stage, some level of preparation, moderately prepared, good level of preparation and well advanced”. “Backsliding” is the lowest grade that can be obtained for assessment of progress. It is followed by “no progress, some/limited progress, good progress and significant progress”.

Tapping in place, when it comes to the negotiations between Montenegro and the EU, is the best reflected in the fact that in as many as 30 of the 33 chapters, only “limited progress” has been identified. No backsliding has been identified in any area this year either, although the Functioning of Judiciary, as a special aspect under Chapter 23, has been assessed worse than in the last year (with no progress compared to limited progress). On the other hand, freedom of expression received a slightly better rating (limited progress compared to last year’s rating of stagnation).

In the report, the European Commission highlighted the administrative capacity gap following the change of government, especially in terms of managing the negotiation process. The IA has also recently warned that slow process of reorganisation, poor workforce planning and the introduction of unregulated competitions for acting officials, managerial positions in public administration are further destabilised, in the context in which the Government itself in February this year pointed out that ’’significant outflow of expert staff from negotiating structures may  negatively affect the dynamics of meeting the obligations of the negotiation process.”

Despite the announcements of a new enlargement methodology, and merging of chapters into the so-called clusters, the report is not significantly different in quality and content, comparing to the previous years. In certain sections, there is a greater emphasis on the political preconditions of the necessary reforms, and thus, the report also contains the level of political analysis along with the usual assessments of technical criteria and benchmarks.

However, the situation on the ground in Montenegro and other EU Enlargement countries has exceeded the framework of usual annual reports and enlargement methodology long time ago. Therefore, the IA has supported recommendations of other organisations from the region within the TEN network (Think for Europe) and of Brussels-based CEPS for the introduction of measures of the so-called early integration or phased membership. This new approach would also entail the changes of assessment of all areas, especially of the rule of law.