Montenegro ranks second-to-last among the six Western Balkan countries in the digitalization of public administration and service delivery, scoring only half a point higher than Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to findings from the WeBER project implemented in Montenegro by Institute Alternative.
Despite the launch of the new e-Government portal and the plan to develop 171 electronic services by 2027, practical implementation shows that citizens and businesses are still facing a lack of real electronic services, fragmented administration, and inadequate attitudes from public servants.
These were among the key conclusions from the conference “Citizens First”, organized today in Podgorica by Institute Alternative within the WeBER 3.0 project, funded by the European Commission and the Austrian Development Agency, and co-funded by the Ministry of Public Administration of Montenegro.
The conference brought together representatives of state institutions, the business community, civil society, and the media to discuss Montenegro’s progress in public service delivery and digitalization of public administration, as well as citizens’ experiences in their daily interactions with public authorities.
Jelena Radulović from Institute Alternative presented the findings of the regional WeBER report monitoring public administration reform in the area of service delivery. A recent milestone was the launch of the e-Government portal in December 2024, with the first electronic services integrated only in April this year. The portal brings improvements in terms of available information — citizens can now see which institution is responsible for a particular service, how much it costs, and what documentation and forms are required. However, “despite these improvements, none of the seven most essential services in our sample — such as issuing personal documents, company registration, vehicle registration, and property registration — are currently available on the new e-Government portal,” Radulović explained.
Radulović emphasized a key problem: institutions in Montenegro rarely ask citizens what they need, how services should function, or how they could be improved. Public opinion research confirms this. “Only 27.8 percent of respondents believe they can influence the development of public administration services. This means that most citizens see the administration as an unchangeable structure they cannot meaningfully influence,” she added.
Dušan Polović, Director General of the Directorate for Infrastructure, Information Security, Digitalization, and e-Services at the Ministry of Public Administration, explained that the Ministry had conducted three research cycles with UNDP to better understand citizens’ needs. “Citizens want the government portal to be a single entry point — they don’t want to wander across multiple websites of different state bodies.” He noted that this principle was incorporated into the Digital Services Development Plan, but implementation has been slower than expected.
According to Polović, a key challenge — in addition to citizens’ digital literacy — lies in government-level interoperability. “Due to delays in adopting the staffing plan, we could not achieve an important goal — strengthening the information society inspection. Some public bodies are not fulfilling their legal obligations under the Law on Electronic Administration. Citizens are forced to contact institutions individually, wasting time.”
Boris Rebić, UNDP Programme Manager, highlighted that even when citizens are aware of electronic services, they rarely use them. “About 52 percent of citizens know about e-services, but only 8 percent actually use them,” Rebić said. Resistance to e-services, he added, is not about fear of technology: “People simply want easier processes. We’ve seen how the process of getting an ID card works in 2025 — it’s absurd. The real issue is the lack of e-services. These need to be developed — regardless of the level, the key is that the service exists.”
He stressed that electronic services depend on data quality and information exchange between institutions. “Institutions are not paying enough attention to this,” Rebić noted. “E-services rely on well-maintained data registries and secure, intensive, and continuous data exchange. That’s why some services remain underdeveloped.”
At the end of the panel, Jelena Radulović summarized the main recommendations: “The state should consult citizens on how services should look and how they can be accessed. Citizen feedback and experiences should be formalized and made publicly available, with clear channels for citizens to share their needs and experiences. Furthermore, “civil servants providing services have not received additional training on working with vulnerable groups — there have been no such trainings in the past two years. The Human Resources Administration should design them.” Finally, “data should be published in multiple formats, digital signatures and online payments should be the foundation of e-services, and the e-Government portal should become the central hub for all e-administrative services.”
In the second panel discussion, “How Citizen- and Business-Oriented is the Administration?”, Bojana Pravilović from Institute Alternative presented citizens’ experiences collected in Kotor, Ulcinj, and Podgorica. “One of the main problems is the behavior of public servants. Official phone numbers and emails often don’t work, so if information is urgently needed, citizens can’t get it,” she emphasized.
Even for basic procedures, time barriers are significant. “Sometimes, for the simplest services — like obtaining a personal document — citizens have to take a day off work.”
Andrijana Radović from the Network for Open Dialogue spoke about citizen participation in public consultations. “We wondered why so few citizens attend public consultations — is it a lack of interest or something else? After organizing focus groups, we found there’s strong interest.” She added that the consultation process involving over three thousand citizens, conducted within the WeBER-supported project, should be taken into account in the next Strategic Development Plan of Podgorica.
Suzana Radulović from the Employers’ Union addressed administrative services from the business perspective. “There has been some progress, but faster responses are needed to address the concerns raised by the business sector.”
She stressed that public administration is the face of the state that citizens encounter daily. Regarding digitalization, “it’s one of the biggest challenges facing public administration, and business expectations are highest in this area because digitalization speeds up procedures. In addition to e-fiscalization and public procurement, e-invoicing should also be highlighted — all of these represent progress.” The Union sees positive signs: “We notice greater openness from the public administration and some ministries — not all, but there’s growing willingness to communicate and make improvements.”
Vladan Tabaš from the Association of Managers of Montenegro explained that digital services depend on technical foundations: “Montenegro’s infrastructure is excellent — much of it matches EU standards. For individuals using ADSL, prices are fair, but for companies, accessibility is problematic. Symmetrical connections are extremely expensive — leased lines in Montenegro are disproportionately costly, posing a greater barrier than digital literacy itself.”
He added that two key technical systems are crucial for Montenegro: “The open data portal and the meta-register. The meta-register is a unified database containing information on all registries and information systems — it’s the foundation. Without it, e-services cannot be developed.” He emphasized: “Heterogeneous information systems must be able to exchange data — interoperability is essential. Institutions can choose their technologies, but whatever they build must be interoperable, capable of exchanging required data with other systems.”
The results are clear: after three years, the same problems persist — showing that digitalization is not merely a technological issue but one of political will and institutional capacity for change.
Institute Alternative will continue monitoring public administration reform within the WeBER 3.0 project.
The conference was organized as part of the project “Western Balkan Enablers for Reforming Public Administrations – WeBER 3.0.” The project aims to further empower civil society organizations to contribute to more transparent, open, and accountable administrations that are citizen-centered and aligned with EU standards in the Western Balkans. The project is funded by the European Union, represented by the European Commission, and co-funded by the Austrian Development Agency and the Ministry of Public Administration of Montenegro.