The members of the Parliament of Montenegro, by a majority of votes (43 in favor, nine against and one abstention), included on the agenda of today's session proposals for amendments to the law that treats the issue of the maritime domain. On this occasion, the presidents of the coastal municipalities sent "words of gratitude to the members of the Parliament of Montenegro who recognized the importance of this topic, supported the initiative, and therefore the justified fight for the public interest that all municipalities of the Montenegrin coast have been leading for months."
"We express our hope and belief that the representatives of the citizens will continue to vote in the interests of the citizens of the Montenegrin coast and adopt the draft laws that have been included on the agenda today," reads a joint statement by the mayors of Kotor Vladimir Jokić, Tivat Željko Komnenović, Herceg Novi Stevan Katic, Budva Nikola Jovanović, Bar Dušan Raičević and Ulcinj Genci Nimanbegu.
A draft of new laws that would finally return greater authority to coastal municipalities in spatial planning and coastal management of their own cities was prepared by a working group of the Union of Municipalities of Montenegro.
They were submitted to the procedure of the Parliament of Montenegro on December 24th last year, but the Speaker of the Parliament Andrija Mandić (New Serbian Democracy - NSD) has kept them in a drawer until now and has not presented them to the plenary session.
Amendments to the law that would transform the current JP Morsko dobro into a government agency for consultation and oversight regarding how coastal municipalities manage their own coastlines have been supported by representatives of almost all political entities from coastal municipalities, as demonstrated by the fact that they are being "pushed" by mayors who come from various political parties and civic lists, some of which are in power at the state level, and some are in opposition.
The only ones who have so far explicitly spoken out in public against the proposed new laws and the return of powers to coastal cities in the field of coastal management are representatives of the NSD, because that party currently has almost a monopoly in that area because it controls the Public Company Morsko dobro and the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property, which are led by its senior officials Mladen Mikijelj and Slaven Radunović.
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