Closing the Ministry of European Affairs (MEP) may be one of the rare smart decisions of the Government, and the appointment of a new negotiator will show whether the executive power has chosen to continue simulating the reform process, believes the Executive Director of the Center for Civic Education (CGO) Daliborka Uljarević.
She said that the formation of the MEP was "planted crookedly" from the very beginning in everything.
Uljarević said that it starts with the name because the Government does not manage European affairs since it is not in the European Union (EU) but the European integration process of Montenegro.
"Through the internal arrangement of that Ministry, which randomly and out of the huge ambition of the former minister-chief negotiator-ambassador picked up the competences of others and thus systematically overlapped with other ministries and bodies and confused interested parties," Uljarević told the MINA agency.
She believes that the closure of the MEP, whose establishment was problematic from the beginning by the CGO, can be a rare smart lesson of this Government.
Uljarević said that, after the resignation of Aleksandar Andrije Pejović, the CGO proposed the dissolution of the MEP and the merger of the existing directorates with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Finance and the General Secretariat.
She explained that the CGO also proposed tying the chief negotiator to the Prime Minister's cabinet, which, as she stated, would give him political weight and effectiveness, and would not in any way collapse the internal organization of the Government.
"It is good that the Government took that recommendation into serious consideration and we hope that it will turn it into a final decision, despite the fact that it came from a critically oriented part of the civil sector," said Uljarević.
She pointed out that in addition to the administration in Podgorica, the chief negotiator had an office in Brussels, which was attached to the MEP, and located in the Mission of Montenegro to the EU, which is managed by the ambassador from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
"I think that was also unnecessary, because the mandate of the entire Mission of Montenegro to the EU is to be at the service of our European integrations, and therefore it should be supportive of the main negotiator to the extent of real and not status needs," said Uljarević.
According to her, there are no obstacles for the chief negotiator, who would be in the prime minister's cabinet, with a very small number of people with professional capacity and integrity, and with the corresponding support of the Mission in Brussels, to do his job in an optimal way.
"Of course, on the condition that the Government appoints a negotiator who will be professional, dedicated, with integrity and proven performance, and without party baggage that would limit his necessary resistance to particular interests and the positioning of the negotiation process itself as inclusive, transparent and based on the public interest" , emphasized Uljarević.
When asked to comment on the fact that a new chief negotiator has not yet been appointed, given that the country is in the middle of negotiations with the EU, Uljarević said that Montenegro's path towards the EU is characterized by many oddities.
As she stated, in no EU member state or one that is in the process of accession has it been recorded "that the chief negotiator was in such violation of the Constitution and a number of laws as in Montenegro".
"It's not just that man's problem, it's a problem that was consciously produced by the Government, succumbing to intra-party balancing acts and the unfounded and huge ambition of the former minister-chief negotiator-ambassador," Uljarević believes.
She said that nothing in the process of European integration has stopped because "the renaissance Aleksandar Andrija Pejović is not sitting on his ministerial-chief negotiator-ambassador chair".
"On the contrary, some things that he himself blocked were unblocked," Ulajrevic added.
The slowdown on the road to the EU, according to her, has been evident for some time with a visible lack of enthusiasm within the Montenegrin administration and the fatigue of decision-makers from internal reforms as they inevitably lead to the collapse of existing power monopolies.
"This government has the party's interest before any public interest and will defend it by all means, which is clearly evidenced by the example of the illegal removal of ineligible members of the RTCG Council and the constant pressure on the public service that should lead, after the publication of the EC Report, and the removal of the existing management," she said. Ulajrevic.
She also said that there are fewer and fewer people in the government in the highest positions who fundamentally understand the complexity and seriousness of the European integration process.
"The appointment of a new negotiator will therefore indicate whether the Government has chosen to continue to simulate the process of reforms, and therefore European integration, because for us European affairs are essentially domestic affairs, or perhaps there is an awareness that it is necessary to make certain qualitative and more radical interventions in that respect", concluded Uljarević.
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