Activists of women's non-governmental organizations in Montenegro believe that the request of the European Commission (EC) to suspend the financing of Vladimir Beba Popović's project "Women's Government of the Western Balkans" is quite expected.
The EC has opened an investigation into the project "Women's Government of the Western Balkans" which was awarded to the Institute for Public Policy of Vladimir Beba Popović, after ordering the suspension of the signing of the grant. 52 non-governmental organizations from the Balkans were informed about this, and at the end of June they sent a letter to the President of the EC, Jean-Claude Juncker, requesting that the EC withdraw the decision on awarding a grant worth 127.500 euros.
"When you have something false, wrong, dishonest and when you know it is dishonest - you must not remain silent," said the director of the Safe Women's House, Ljiljana Raičević.
She believes that the project for which Popović was supposed to receive huge money is repetitive and not innovative, not very important at the moment.
"At the same time, you have the signature of a man who did ugly things, made misogynistic statements, so it is logical that we organized ourselves and wrote a letter to the donor, which produced results," Raičević said.
Slavica Striković from the NGO Women's Action assessed that the EC's response was natural.
"It is interesting that the EC wrote in its response that this case will be investigated in detail and that the EU Delegation in Montenegro will be involved. If it were not for this decision, we would have lost faith in European institutions," she said.
The Director of the Center for Women's Rights, Maja Raičević, said that the letter from the Director General of the Directorate General for Migration and Internal Affairs of the EC, which was delivered to the Center for Women's Rights, is encouraging, as it shows that the European Commission respects the credibility of organizations that implement projects from European funds and the values they promote. .
"I believe that it is a logical decision to suspend the financing of a project related to the promotion of women's rights, which was granted to an organization whose director publicly admitted that he distributed video material that deliberately sought to harm the reputation of a civil society activist," she said.
According to her, this whole inappropriate campaign, based on gender discrimination, "makes both Popović and his NGO unworthy to deal with issues of gender equality and human rights in general".
Raičević concluded that this was recognized by the civil sector in the region and the EC, and that it remains to be recognized by Montenegrin institutions as well.
NGOs from Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia reminded that "Vladimir Beba Popović is a man who directly promoted an unworthy campaign against the brave civil society activist Vanja Ćalović, but also indirectly against other civil society activists who are critically oriented towards Montenegrin authorities".
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