In Montenegro, European integration is talked about much more than it is done, and the building of political walls between the government and the opposition complicates that process, said former Prime Minister Igor Lukšić.
At the conference "Process of creating public policies: Participation, transparency, responsibility", which was organized by the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT), he said that even in the European Union (EU) there is political trade in lobbying and certain practices that "we believe should be to correct".
"But the level of institutions there is such that it protects the system and gives citizens the right to expect that their problems will be solved through that system, and that is what we lack," Lukšić said.
According to him, EU integration is much more talked about than implemented.
Lukšić added that this process depends a lot on the people who are at the head of the government and the ministry, whether they really understand their role.
"Either it boils down to one or two tweets, or to the fact that you send messages at a meeting in three phrases, and then the next day the impulse to implement it will not live," Lukšić said, CDT reported.
He said that the enthusiasm for integration at the time was responsible for the accelerated opening of negotiations on membership with the EU, which were started during his mandate.
Lukšić stated that the negotiations were open because there was a lot of enthusiasm, both in the administration and the public.
He said that Montenegro is not a country with a developed rule of law, and that this is a process that takes a long time.
"Management and setting an example is very important, and then there was synergy and enthusiasm on both sides. We worked to encourage the process of European integration and that's why we won the negotiations", Lukšić added.
Speaking about the inclusiveness of the Government during that period, he pointed out that as prime minister he did not shy away from negotiations with the opposition, which, he said, also contributed to the opening of membership negotiations.
Lukić said that it is harmful for Montenegro to build walls between the government and the opposition, and that the Democratic Party of Socialists, as the leader of the government, did not dominate in inclusiveness in all periods.
"The practice could have been different, through different behavior to insist on inclusiveness. When you build walls, the other side builds walls," said Lukšić.
Lukšić said that after the opening of negotiations with the EU, Montenegro had a higher level of partitocracy than before.
"That raising of political walls was expressed as having made the process of integration more difficult," said Lukšić.
Commenting on the fact that Montenegro still does not have laws on the Government and the Parliament, he said that the culture of the rule of law is more important than repression.
"As far as I know, the Law on the Government was prepared even earlier," Lukšić said.
He pointed to countries that do not have a written Constitution, so they function based on established practices.
"The culture of the rule of law is more important than repression, you don't need someone to remind you of your responsibility in order to apologize to the public in a certain situation," said Lukšić.
That, as he said, in political gradation sometimes implies resignation, fall of the government, change of the parliamentary majority.
"We will not achieve that stage if we have a law on the Government and the Parliament", assessed Lukšić.
Asked whether he expects Croatia to block Montenegro on its way to the EU, or whether the problem will escalate, he said that the situation has already escalated.
Lukšić assessed that there is already a serious problem in the relations between the two countries.
As he said, the fact that the leaders of institutions are persona non grate should be an alarm.
"Without going into the historical genesis of the problem, I think the first step towards building a reasonable society is the chance to accept that it is not always someone else's fault. Let's try to accept that the fault sometimes lies with us, that we didn't realize what the standards of European political action are," said Lukšić.
CDT executive director Dragan Koprivica said that the government works ad hoc, according to outdated rules, without a law on the government.
He said that the worrisome phenomenon is that there are more phone sessions of the Government than regular ones.
"Today, the Government fulfills about 60 percent of the fairly basic criteria of openness and is the third in the region, the process of public consultations has pretty much died down, we have not had quality discussions on the IBAR laws, nor on the laws related to the Europe Now program," Koprivica pointed out.
He stated that the Government had promised to hold media conferences after each session and that it had not fulfilled that promise.
Koprivica said that the Prime Minister chooses the media that suits him for interviews, and that he is a little more open during election campaigns.
He said that the amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information did not pass the parliamentary procedure for the third time.
"On stage, there is a kind of ping-pong between the executive and legislative authorities on procedural matters, because obviously no one really likes the improvement of this act. In short, the 44th government has a problem with openness," Koprivica pointed out.
He said that the Regional Index of Openness, which CDT works with regional partners, showed that the Assembly is generally good in administrative transparency, that is, it publishes all important information.
Koprivica reminded that the law on the Assembly has still not been adopted and added that almost unimaginable phenomena have been happening in the parliament lately.
"They symbolically start with not reading the prime minister's exposé, we have the cancellation or postponement of the prime minister's hours, informing MPs about plenary sessions via SMS," stated Koprivica.
He pointed to, as he said, non-transparent changes to the agenda, that is, abuses aimed at putting the opposition in a subordinate position, which should result in the absence of parliamentary debates.
"The control function of the parliament is bad, representatives of the executive power do not appear at the hearings, there is a lack of quality committee work, and the Rules of Procedure are being changed in order to reduce the possibilities of initiating initiatives from the opposition," said Koprivica.
According to him, political agreements destroy the constitutional balance of power.
Koprivica said that all of this is wrapped up symbolically - with the new logo of the Assembly, which was adopted non-transparently and without an international competition.
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