If the government decides to amend the Montenegrin citizenship law in a summary procedure, that is, without prior consultations with the interested public, it may be said that there’s a clear intention to change the structure of Montenegro’s population ahead of the census, former assistant minister and negotiator for Chapters 23 and 24, Ms Marijana Laković Drašković, told Pobjeda daily.
According to her, it may be one in a series of manipulative moves of Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapić ahead of the Nikšić elections.
On 22 February, PM Krivokapić tweeted that the government would solve the issues of a large number of people who had been living in Montenegro for years but failed to be granted the citizenship.
“They deserve this issue to be solved,” he noted.
Ms Laković Drašković says that she hopes that the Prime Minister, “when opening this issue, meant on the application of the existing legal framework and speeding up the procedure of granting citizenship to all citizens who have been waiting for it for a long time.”
“I sincerely hope that the PM didn’t mean on the amendments to the Montenegrin Citizenship Law in a summary procedure, without prior consultations with the interested public, as he did with the proposal for the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees.”
Amendments to the Montenegrin Citizenship Law, she warns, is a demanding process, especially in terms of human rights in the context of Montenegro’s accession to the European Union, EU.
