The meeting was opened by the POSP co-chairmen Ranko Krivokapic. He expressed satisfaction with the results achieved by the Parliament of Montenegro in addressing the issue of restoring trust in the electoral process. He added that this was just the beginning of hard work on achieving this goal.
“He explained that the legislative infrastructure was built and that this marked Montenegro’s entering in the stage of achieving measurable results”, the Parliament stated.
Co-chair of the meeting Anneliese Dodds, head of delegation of the European Parliament, commended the implemented initiatives for better relations with neighbours and pointed out that, in addition to ensuring the rule of law and the fight against corruption, the attention should also be paid to a harmonised economic development and increasing employment.
Vice president Dusko Markovic spoke about the pace of the negotiations, on behalf of the government of Montenegro, pointing out that Montenegro has opened two thirds of the negotiating chapters, and it implemented ten out of the thirteen initial standards, and that remaining benchmarks are expected to be met by the end year.
Markovic also said that the last semi-annual reports on implementation of the action plans for chapters 23 and 24 indicated a higher degree of the measures implementation. He also added that the reports on the work of courts and prosecutor’s offices for the previous year showed the progress in this field.
On behalf of the Presidency of the EU Council, ambassador of the Netherlands Hendrik van den Dool said that in the European Commission’s progress report on Montenegro and the resolution of the European Parliament pointed out areas where further efforts were needed, such as electoral legislation, media freedom and the fight against corruption.
On behalf of the European Commission, the head of the EU Delegation to Montenegro Mitja Drobnic spoke about the progress of Montenegro on its path towards membership of the EU. He said implementing election legislation was crucial, but also pointed out that it was important to take a step in the field of environmental protection.
The 12th meeting of POSP will be continued on Friday when a joint declaration is expected to be agreed and recommendations to be adopted.
