Who's in charge?

The attitude of the Montenegrin authorities towards European integration, and especially towards the Working document of the European Commission on the situation in chapters 23 and 24, reminds of a family where no one talks to anyone.

Prime Minister Duško Marković, in his first address before the official publication of the non-paper, said that the report was "generally positive", noting that he had not been able to see the text in detail. "What is certain at this moment, I can say, is that the Report is generally positive, that it records serious progress in the negotiation process, but that in that Report, as in the previous one, the EC warns us of some weaknesses, shortcomings that we must work on" , he assessed.

General attitude. What anyone, from any authority, would say to an uninformed crowd about any EC document.

Soon, the main negotiator of Montenegro with the EU, Aleksandar Drljević, and the negotiator for the 23rd and 24th chapters, Marijana Laković Drašković, are trying to paint the rather gray report of the EC in pink. Drljevic's main message is - he encourages the Working Document of the EC because it represents a message that the process of accession negotiations has not stopped and that the country remains in the focus of the EU. Off topic. We should be encouraged by the fact that the EC made a report at all, and no one questioned it.

Laković Drašković says that the EC has noted clear progress in overcoming the challenges noted in the EC Report from May in the areas of media freedom, the fight against corruption and human trafficking. Progress may have been recorded, but it is not very clear. Especially, from those she mentioned, in the area of ​​media freedom.

Additionally, the negotiator for Chapters 23 and 24 does not agree with the position of the EC that this is the third and not the second mandate of the President of the Supreme Court, Vesna Medenica. "This topic, as well as some others, will be the subject of additional discussions with European partners, and I believe that we will convince them through legal arguments that such positions are not based on facts but on impressions and the wrong perception of part of the public".

They will convince Brussels that they are wrong. It's going to be hard, really hard. Just as they could not convince Brussels that Sreten Radonjić is doing his job "greatly" in the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption. But, instead of Radonjić, who was the first victim of non paper, only his armchair suffered. And with a delay of at least a year.

Then the president of that party and country, Milo Đukanović, takes the stage, not the European stage, but in the Bemax hall, at the Congress of his DPS. In the style of a performer of turbo folk or pop music, he says "everything would be easier if you had a partner on the other side who encourages you". As if this Working Document of the EC, whose essential message is that Montenegro has not yet met the transitional criteria for Chapters 23 and 24, is not enough of an incentive.

And, of course, Brexit and migrants are to blame for the fact that there is not enough progress in the fight against corruption, freedom of the media, independence of the judiciary, prevention of money laundering, while "more important centers of power essentially stopped or prolonged in the long term" the enlargement policy affirmed by Brussels. "The EU is faced with the consequences of crises, migration, and Brexit, and there is still no indication of the direction in which the scenario of overcoming Europe's threatened global competitiveness could develop." Just in case, he added that the vision of the Europeanization of Montenegro does not lose its topicality: "Membership in the EU remains our strategic goal, with full awareness that its realization will not depend on our political will and commitment to reforms."

And then finally, unjustifiably overlooked, the star of the evening. The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice, Zoran Pažin, from the session of the Council for the Rule of Law, which was attended by the Head of the EU Delegation, Aivo Orav, says: "We are in a phase that requires institutions in charge of the rule of law to show much more responsible work, individual and of institutional quality and concrete recognizable results in the areas for which they are in charge. This will not be possible if all competent institutions do not show responsibility at all levels, starting from the elders of the institutions, up to every office bearer and every employee".

Pažin emphasized that there is no place for any commotion in the performance of duties, nor for easy satisfaction with formal statistics, but the results must be essential, such that the citizens themselves can feel them, through the improvement of legal security, as the most important attribute of the rule of law. I sign each one.

I just wonder if they are talking to each other in that house and whose main one is it.

The ignorant Marković, the eurosceptic Đukanović or the promising Pažin.

(European pulse/media.cgo-cce.org)