Montenegro should form a temporary commission that would examine all the decisions that granted Montenegrin citizenships in the last five years due to special circumstances, said Vlado Dedović from the Monitoring Center (CEMI).
Commenting on the fact that 161 people, including controversial figures, received Montenegrin citizenship at the initiative of state leaders in the last five years, Dedović said that granting citizenship under special circumstances must be defined more restrictively. Otherwise, he believes, Montenegro will end up in a situation where the most responsible positions in the country are abused by "giving away citizenships to friends-friends or persons related by interest".
"It is necessary to form a temporary commission that will review all decisions on citizenships granted in the previous five years and that will have the mandate to cancel them, if it judges that certain decisions were made contrary to the Law on Citizenship and that there are no justified interests of the state in granting passports to certain persons ", said Dedović.
Montenegrin citizenship has been granted to 161 people in the last five years on the recommendations of Prime Minister Milo Đukanović, President Filip Vujanović and Speaker of Parliament Ranko Krivokapić, with the approval of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Among them are Nathaniel Rothschild, heir to a well-known banking dynasty and one of the financiers of the Porto Montenegro project in Tivat, former Palestinian Security Minister Mohamed Dahalan, methodologist Miloš Bešić, former Prime Minister of Thailand Taksin Šinavatra, as well as former ambassador to the Vatican in the government of Slobodan Milošević, Dojčilo Maslovarić.
Dedović believes that the majority of citizens do not know what the people who have become owners of Montenegrin passports with benefits have put them in debt. He warned that the abuse of granting citizenship under special conditions must be prevented. "The current situation is such that neither I nor the majority of citizens are in a position to know what the mentioned persons have done to Montenegro and whether granting them citizenship is justified and based on the interests of the state."
Dejan Milovac from the Network for the Affirmation of the Non-Governmental Sector (MANS) believes that the problem is that the procedure for issuing passports takes place far from the public eye with the justification of protecting the personal data of new citizens. When it comes to persons wanted by other countries due to corruption and organized crime, Milovac believes, it is in the interest of the public to know how these persons obtained red passports.
"Montenegro has been attracting very dubious investors for a long time, and the possibility of visa-free movement through EU countries, which our passport allows, is very tempting for those who want to leave their mark," claimed Milovac, stating that by granting citizenship to dubious investors, Montenegro is practically selling the credibility of their country. He recalled the earlier initiative of Prime Minister Milo Đukanović that citizenship is given to everyone who invests half a million euros in Montenegro. "For the time being, fairy tales about millions of euros of investments are being offered to the public as a justification for granting citizenship, while officials are of course silent about the real reasons why some criminal or tycoon 'indebted' the government and deserved to get our passport."
Milovac warned that no one is checking how much new citizens have invested in Montenegro, pointing out that the Government practically does not have a system for checking the credibility of certain persons who are admitted to citizenship.
"Thus, to a large extent, they justify the label of Montenegro as a 'safe house of the mafia'", he stated and added that the government must urgently develop a system of admission to citizenship that will be completely transparent and that will enable citizens to have the right information about why did some white world tycoon deserve our passport.
Dedović suggests that in the process of granting citizenship due to special circumstances, the number of high-ranking civil servants who can propose obtaining citizenship should be increased, but also that the criteria should be tightened, according to which selection, opinions and decisions would be made by an intersectoral commission.
If the ANB was doing its job, they wouldn't even see the passports
Member of Parliament for Positive Montenegro Azra Jasavić assessed that the people of Šinavatra and Dahalan would not be able to obtain citizenship if the National Security Agency (ANB) did its job. Jasavić assessed that the number of people who received citizenship due to special circumstances was too high.
"It is incomprehensible that they could receive citizenship without ANB dealing with it and giving a negative opinion for these people. Obviously, our security system is not doing its job, and due to the concentration of power in the hands of the prime minister, citizenship is being granted to people who would not even think of entering other democratic countries," said Jasavić.
She believes that the Presidents of the Government and the Parliament must be controlled in the process of making proposals for obtaining Montenegrin citizenship. "The prime minister would first have to have the consent of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration (MVPEI) and the Committee for International Relations and Expatriates, because he does not draw legitimacy from the election as the president does."
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