Seafarers from Montenegro have been facing numerous problems for years – this branch has no status and no title to this day. In Montenegro, there is no register of seafarers, nor is there any legal regulation that would enable seafarers to have a better status.
According to some estimates, there are around 6,500 seafarers in Montenegro, although that number has not been defined, precisely because of the lack of a register.
As Captain Nenad Lazovic says, guesting on the Mreza (Network) show on TVCG, Montenegrin sailors are left to their own devices.
“The largest number of them find their employment individually. They each carry their burden in their own way”, says Lazovic.
He points out that Montenegro does not have a single boarding company representative with an official title in Montenegro.
“Legal regulations exist, but monitoring and compliance with trends are absolutely non-existent. The problem is that we have not had a ministry of maritime affairs for three years now, but only some directorate. I must say that in recent years, they have not really made an effort to present Montenegro as a maritime country”, Lazovic believes.
According to him, the Maritime Faculty in Kotor did not produce a single harbor captain for a year and a half.
The President of the Seamen’s Union of Montenegro, Nedjeljko Radulovic, points to another problem: the delay in the biometric issuance of seafarers’ documentation.
Another challenge faced by this profession is that there is no union organization of seafarers in our country.
Radulovic says that Montenegrin sailors are our best ambassadors. “They are our best export product”, concludes Radulovic.
