Montenegro should open negotiation chapter 19 by the end of the year, which refers to social policy and employment and affects the lives of all citizens, announced the State Secretary for European Integration and chief negotiator, Aleksandar Andrija Pejović.
Pejović said at the meeting of the negotiating teams of Montenegro and Serbia, which started today in Podgorica, that he expects that chapter to be opened by the end of December.
"The member countries of the European Union (EU), 11 of them, have given their consent, we still have to get those 17. There is additional work ahead. We will see what the final benchmarks will be and what will be the criteria that will be binding for Montenegro." said Pejović.
He stated that the chapter on social policy and employment is of vital importance.
"Neither social policy nor employment are foreign or distant EU policies, but something that touches the lives of all citizens and their standards. This chapter is one of the binding and key ones that determine the way in which we will prepare countries for future EU membership." said Pejović.
He explained that in March 2014, after completing the review of the EU acquis, Montenegro received a screening report.
"We received an assessment of where we are, and as part of that, there is one initial benchmark, that is, one task that needs to be done, which is to prepare an action plan for harmonization with the legal acquis adopted by the Government in February last year," Pejović added.
He said that they worked on the action plan for almost a year.
"This is not about some internal document of the state, but about adapting our social system and employment policy to the broader European framework," Pejović announced.
A member of Serbia's negotiating team, Zoran Stojiljković, assessed that Montenegro and Serbia have one thing in common.
"According to all surveys of public opinion in the last ten or 15 years, the key problems of Serbia and Montenegro are unemployment, opportunities for young people, poverty and corruption," said Stojiljković.
He stated that it can be viewed from two levels, among other things, and when these societies will acquire development capacities to solve these problems.
"The second level is how we will show that we have the administrative and political capacities to design a model of regulation of social policy, work and employment. You need to be skilled and meet some kind of form, but I think it is very important for these societies that these development standards from the point of view of poverty, unemployment and gray economy, they also reduce our ability to become prosperous societies," concluded Stojiljković.
The meeting of the negotiating teams of Montenegro and Serbia for chapter 19 will last two days, with the aim of representatives of Montenegrin institutions presenting their experience in conducting negotiations in that chapter to their colleagues from Serbia, with a focus on the process of developing an action plan for gradual alignment with the EU acquis, as a benchmark for opening chapter.
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