Montenegro believes that the European Union, EU, won’t give up on the enlargement policy despite the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the dynamics of activities when it comes to the EU integration, a chief negotiator, Mr Aleksandar Drljević, noted.
Mr Drljević presented general activities concerning Montenegro’s EU integration process for the second half of last year to the parliamentary European Integration Committee. Attendees of the meeting discussed the implementation of obligations stemming from the Programme of Accession of Montenegro to the EU as well.
“Depending on the situation with COVID-19, we hope to open negotiations under Chapter 8 – Competition – in June 2020,” the Chief Negotiator said.
Speaking about the core of the negotiation process, i.e. Chapters 23 and 24, the Chief Negotiator recalled that most provisional benchmarks, primarily concerning the improvement of the legislative and institutional framework, and to a lesser extent establishing an initial balance of results in important areas, were met so far.
We expect that the efforts will be recognized in the next EC Report on Montenegro, and we hope to receive a report on the fulfillment of provisional benchmarks in the near future, and afterwards, the one on fulfillment of final benchmarks in these chapters,” Mr Drljević told.
