Despite formal progress in the process of approaching the European Union (EU) and despite assessments of impressive progress in the areas our organization deals with, there is actually no impressive progress - the electoral reform after more than a year is not yielding any serious results, the transparency of government decision-making is decreasing, there is an increasing incidence of deliberate undermining of democratic processes, we are far from a well-organized and optimized public administration, and in the judiciary, after 25 years of reform, there are still more problems than good practices.
According to the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT), these are the most important conclusions of the publication. "Stability or Reform: Status Quo as European Policy" in which the CDT analyzes the political and reform activities of the Government and the ruling majority, which took place from November 2024 to the end of April 2025, at the end of the year and a half of the mandate of the 44th Government of Montenegro.
"Before and after its reconstruction, the Government and the majority in parliament functioned stably, although from time to time its constituents exchanged harsh words, disagreements, and even threats to leave power. The Prime Minister and the leader of the strongest party (Milojko Spajić) chose an unusual tactic for the functioning of the majority: he signed various types of coalition and political agreements with almost all key actors on the political scene and in this way tried to manage a heterogeneous government and, often, complicated relations with the opposition. Sometimes he was successful in this, sometimes this approach led him into serious problems, but the fact is that the actors of the ruling majority are satisfied with this approach and that there is a high degree of agreement among them to continue to remain in power," the CDT statement, signed by Dragan Koprivica, executive director, emphasizes.
The statement added that "although the 44th Government placed special emphasis on progress towards the EU and formally achieved more concrete results in this regard than previous executive authorities, and although we could hear statements from high-ranking EU representatives about 'impressive' progress, there are more and more indicators that the proclaimed goal - membership in 2028 - will hardly be achieved."
"The reasons for this should be sought primarily in Montenegro, but also in global political movements and relations within the EU. IBAR, which the government's political propaganda has labeled a symbol of success and prosperity, has not yielded concrete results. Instead of changes for the better, we have adopted IBAR laws that have proven to be superficial, inapplicable in practice, and often meaningless," said the CDT.
The NGO added that within the ruling majority, during the period covered by their document, there were "noticeable anti-democratic tendencies - the demonization of dissenting opinions and pressure on critics of the government, which can be symbolically summarized through the announcement of a bill on foreign agents and the government's rigid attitude towards the protests launched by the informal group of students Kamo Sutra and other critics."
"The period covered in the publication was marked by the sudden activities of the 35 billion euro project in Ulcinj, the first steps of which were very poorly done and presented by the government in a manner of non-transparency, disrespect for the law and pointing to the possibility of corruption. The European Parliament, regarding the signed agreement with the UAE and the announced investments, has issued a warning that certain points of the agreement are contrary to the EU legal order. The Parliament, before the expiration of the prescribed deadline and contrary to established practice, put up for debate a petition on the introduction of religious education in schools and instead of reforms, attempted a new round of desecularization of Montenegro, which, for now, has not succeeded," said the CDT.
According to them, the party's dominance over the security sector has continued.
"Even after four and a half years, we still do not have a full-time director of the Police Administration (UP) or his assistants. Or more precisely, in the UP and the National Security Agency (ANB) we have a fourth director in a little over four years," said the CDT.
They state that there is no will to pass key laws that would increase transparency and the way the system functions.
"The laws on the government, the parliament and free access to information are still waiting for a better moment and a truly reformist government, and the optimization of public administration is rarely mentioned. Instead, we have constant employment of party favorites, without respecting the rule that the one with the best references gets the job. In the end, we leave it to the assessment - whether the facts we state indicate that, as proclaimed, Montenegro will complete negotiations with the EU by the end of 2026, and by 2028, become the 28th member of the EU," said the CDT.
The complete publication is available here.
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