Kos: Montenegro has made great strides on its path to the EU

Montenegro has my support to close all negotiation chapters by 2026, said European Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos.

Deputy Prime Minister Aleksa Bečić and Minister of Interior Danilo Šaranović spoke with her today, as part of their visit to Brussels.

"Congratulations to Montenegro, you have made great strides on your path towards the EU. You have my full support for your aspiration to close all negotiation chapters by 2026," Commissioner Kos stated, adding that more work lies ahead, in areas such as visa policy.

"I commend you, Vice President, ministers and your team, for the successes achieved in the fight against crime and corruption and in border and migration management, which are already contributing to a safer EU," she concluded.

Bečić thanked for the optimistic messages and support for the achievements so far and plans for further dynamization of the European path and successes in the field of the rule of law.

"We are pleased that the EU's annual report has also recognized excellent results in the fight against organized crime and corruption. This is significantly contributed to by the exceptional cooperation that the security sector and the prosecution have with Europol, and the level of trust is evidenced by the fact that data exchange has significantly increased in the past year," he said.

As he added, we are witnessing historic results when it comes to the number of prosecuted members of organized crime groups and persons of operational interest, results in the fight against economic and environmental crime, dismantling smuggling networks, as well as criminal offenses in the field of corruption.

"Challenges in the field of the rule of law remain insufficiently efficient court processes, often accompanied by numerous procedural abuses. Cleaning the security sector and the entire state apparatus from the influence of crime and corruption is one of the priorities," he pointed out, adding that the Ministry of Interior showed the best results in the field of norms last year, i.e. the adoption of strategies and laws from the European agenda.

"The adoption of a new, far more rigorous Law on Weapons is also being prepared, and it is important to point out that the Ministry of Interior's campaign 'Respect life, return weapons' has yielded excellent results, with citizens returning more weapons in the past two months than in the previous ten years. Ultimately, Montenegro is determined to continue its successes on the European path and to maintain the planned dynamics by closing several negotiation chapters this year, with the aim of achieving the historic goal and dream of many generations to become the 2028th member of the EU in 28," he concluded.

Minister Šaranović highlighted the successes in the area of ​​strategic planning where we "achieved maximum results - one hundred percent implementation of strategic documents from Chapter 24 - Justice, Freedom and Security, which represents a significant step forward compared to the previous period. At the same time, in the legislative framework, the ministry adopted seven key legal and by-laws in 2024, while in the previous year, out of the planned 13, only one law was adopted.