If Montenegro wants to accelerate its accession process, it should act as a modern and mature democracy and put an end to this internal conflict as soon as possible, said MEP David Martin, the chair of the Delegation to the EU-Montenegro Stabilisation and Association Parliamentary Committee.
He called to mind that Montenegro applied for EU membership in 2008. After the Commission’s green light in 2010, accession negotiations finally began.
In his opinion peace for the European Western Balkans news portal, he says that “steady progress has been made on the Montenegro side” since then. Out of 35 chapters, 30 have been opened and 3 are to be closed imminently.
The opening of 2 important chapters – on freedom of movement for workers and on the right of establishment and freedom to provide services – has actually just been announced this week.
“It is no surprise that the EU expects Montenegro to make significant progress on essential areas such as the rule of law, including the fight against corruption and organised crime, and media freedom,” he points out.
Martin believes that progressively reducing external debt and deficit will be also crucial.
“These are all areas in which the EU and the European Parliament, in particular, require strong engagement from their partners and will not accept sub-optimal results,” he says.
The president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, mentioned in the State of the Union speech before the European Parliament last September the possible accession of Serbia and Montenegro to the EU by 2025.
Martin explains that this was just an indicative deadline and did not necessarily imply that Serbia and Montenegro would accede to the EU at the same time.
“Their accession negotiations are not inter-linked but follow their own paths,” he says.
The EU welcomed Montenegro’s accession to NATO last 5th June.
According to Martin, that was an important step signalling Montenegro’s willingness to engage with the international community and a historic shift towards the Western Alliance.
“In fact, as expected, this triggered strong protests by Russia. In light of the above, there is no doubt that Montenegro is certainly moving in the right direction,” the MEP says.
However, at the same time, he points out that the opposition’s continued boycott of Parliament since the October 2016 elections is extremely worrisome.
The legal process concerning election day events is unfortunately still ongoing without any clear timeline for a court decision, he adds.
“I frankly do not believe the EU could ever accept such political situation in any of its member states,” Martin emphasises.
If Montenegro wants to accelerate its accession process, it should act as a modern and mature democracy and put an end to this internal conflict as soon as possible.
“While I am sadly witnessing the departure of the UK from the EU, I continue to strongly believe in the EU project and in Montenegro as one of its members, hopefully, in the very near future,” Martin concludes.
