Montenegro has not closed any negotiation chapter with the European Union for almost two and a half years.
Despite this, the government will distribute more than 110.000 euros to the members of the Negotiating Group next year.
Although all 15 members of the Negotiating Group have basic incomes ranging from 1.000 to less than 4.000 euros per month, this is not the only way the Government has decided to help them. In the last four years, almost half of them received apartments or housing loans from the Government under favorable conditions.
Montenegro opened the penultimate chapter a year ago, closed it in June 2017.
Some of the members of the Negotiating Group are responsible for four negotiation chapters.
Thus, Assistant Minister of Labor and Social Welfare Ljiljana Simović is in charge of two - 2 (Freedom of movement of workers) and 19 (Social policy and employment).
In February of this year, Simović received a housing loan of EUR 40.000 under favorable conditions.
According to her property record, in addition to her basic salary, which last year amounted to some 1.115 euros per month, in the last four months she earned 1.500 euros from rent.
Assistant Minister of Justice Marijana Laković Drašković, who is in charge of key chapters for the negotiation process - 23 and 24, received ten thousand euros less from the Government. She is returning the 30.000 euros loan under favorable conditions in installments of 30,7 euros.
Her basic salary last year was 1.060 euros, and every month she received 135 euros as a member of the Management Board of the Center for Training in the Judiciary and the State Prosecutor's Office.
In addition, membership in the Commission for the Selection and Dismissal of Court Experts for most of last year brought her a little over 385 euros each, and chairing the Commission for English Language Interpreters and the Commission for Exams for Public Bailiffs a little more than 190 euros per month. Assistant to the Minister of Economy, Biljana Jakić, is in charge of four chapters 1 (Freedom of movement of goods), 7 (Intellectual property rights), 8 (Competitiveness) and 28 (Consumer and health protection). Competitiveness is the only chapter left for Montenegro to open.
In January of last year, Jakić received a 20.000 euro housing loan under favorable conditions.
He pays back the installment of 36,7 euros from the salary of 1.134 euros. As a member of the government's Commission for the Control of State Aid, she received another 250 euros in the first seven months of last year.
Another assistant to the Minister of Economy, Goran Nikolić, who is in charge of Chapters 20.000 (Right to establish a company and freedom to provide services), 3 (Economic law) and 6 (Entrepreneurship and industrial policy) also received 20 euros under favorable conditions. The loan is returned in installments of 70 euros.
In addition to the basic salary of less than 1.100 euros, he received 100 euros per month all last year as a member of the government's Social Council, and he received 2.242 euros in December for consulting services. State Secretary of the Ministry of Transport and Maritime Affairs, Angelina Živković, received five thousand euros less than the housing loan under favorable conditions. The loan is paid back in monthly installments of 27,8 euros.
She owns two apartments and half of the house. Her basic salary amounts to less than 1.330 euros.
Živković leads chapters 14 (Transport policy) and 21 (Trans-European networks).
The only one among them who did not get an apartment or a loan during the term of Prime Minister Duško Marković, but his predecessor, is the state secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Nemanja Katnić, who is in charge of Chapters 16 (Taxes) and 29 (Customs Union).
Since the end of 2015, Katnić has been paying off a housing loan of 40.000 euros under favorable conditions, which is paid in installments of 73,5 euros per month.
His basic salary is 1.266 euros per month.
The only one who got an apartment is ambassador Zoran Janković, who heads chapter 31 (Foreign, security and defense policy).
In February of this year, he received an apartment of 75 square meters from the Government. Since March, he has been paying a loan of 18.362 euros in installments of 76,5 euros. Before receiving the apartment from the state, the Janković family already owned two apartments of 70 and 72 and a business space of 45 square meters.
His basic salary last year, while he was state secretary, was 1.563, and he collected another 900 euros per month from rent. Chapters 10 (Information Society and Media), 25 (Science and Research) and 26 (Education and Culture) are in charge of Anđelko Lojpur from the Faculty of Economics. Of these three, chapters 25 and 26 are temporarily closed.
His monthly income last year exceeded 2.300 euros per month, of which almost 1.300 came from the university.
As president of the Board of Directors of Luka Bar, he received around 705 euros, 170 from the Institute of Certified Accountants, and another 150 from Računovođ doo.
Assistant Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Radana Damjanović is in charge of chapters 11 (Agriculture and Rural Development), 12 (Food Safety, Veterinary Medicine and Phytosanitary Supervision) and 13 (Fisheries).
Her average salary was less than 1.050 euros per month last year.
Deputy chief negotiator Ivana Glišević Đurović heads chapter 22 (Regional policy and coordination of structural instruments).
Her average salary was 1.170 euros last year.
The state secretary of the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism Saša Radulović is in charge of the most expensive chapter - 27 (Environment and climate change).
His monthly income last year amounted to 1.360 euros. The State Secretary of the Ministry of Economy, Nikola Vujović, is in charge of Chapter 15 (Energy).
Its basic pata was 1.254 euros last year. Assistant to the Minister of Finance, Bojan Paunović, is in charge of Chapters 5 (Public Procurement), 32 (Financial Supervision) and 33 (Financial and Budget Provisions),
His basic salary was 1.002 euros last year. The vice governor of the Central Bank of Montenegro, Nikola Fabris, is in charge of the four chapters.
These are 4 (Freedom of Capital Movement), 9 (Financial Services), 17 (Economic and Monetary Union) and 18 (Statistics).
His basic salary last year averaged around 3.900 euros.
From the Faculty of Economics, his monthly income is almost 220 euros, and from the University of Belgrade an average of 1.612 euros. He received 6.657 euros from tax refunds last year alone. Goran Šćepanović from the Ministry of Economy is in charge of Chapter 30 (External Relations), which is temporarily closed. At the Government session of September 20, 2018, Šćepanović resigned from the position of director of the Directorate for Multilateral and Regional Trade Cooperation and Economic Relations with Foreign Countries in the Ministry of Economy. "A new negotiator is expected to be appointed for Chapter 30, and due to cost planning, the total number of negotiators taken into consideration is 15," reads the Government's decision.
The negotiating group is responsible for the professional and technical level of negotiations with EU institutions and member states, for all chapters of the negotiations. The negotiating group considers and determines proposals for negotiating positions and is accountable to the Government for its work. The composition of the Negotiating Group consists of the chief negotiator, deputies of the chief negotiator and members of the Negotiating Group in charge of individual chapters.
Members of the Negotiating Group in charge of individual chapters are appointed and dismissed by the Government, upon the proposal of the chief negotiator.
They provide professional support to the chief negotiator in negotiations, participate in negotiations at the behest of the chief negotiator, coordinate the work of working groups for the preparation of negotiations by individual chapters, and prepare proposals for negotiating positions.
Sošić: Why the fees now, when most of the negotiating positions have been drafted
The representative of the Alternative Institute, Marko Sošić, notes that the members of the Negotiating Group belong to senior management whose basic salary was increased by the Law on Salaries of Employees in the Public Sector, and the increase was then justified by the intention to abolish or drastically limit additional additional income based on membership in working bodies .
"By adopting the request of the Negotiating Group, the Government renders meaningless the previous justification for increasing the salary of management staff and again introduces significant additions to their basic salary. Many of the members of the Negotiating Group are at the same time members of other working bodies for which they also receive special allowances. Furthermore, in this case, the allowance is given for jobs whose actual workload is difficult to calculate, as well as information on whether these specially paid jobs are performed within the regular paid working hours", said Sošić for "Vijesti".
In the request, it is requested that all members receive the same compensation, although, Sošić notes, there are six members who are negotiators for three or four chapters at the same time, while the others negotiate for one or two chapters.
Analyzing their records, as well as the Government's conclusions, the IA public policy researcher notes that the negotiators did not ask for compensation in previous years.
“The question is why the fees are being asked for right now. What increased volume of work is expected in the coming period, which is not in accordance with the previous work of the Negotiating Group, which did not require this compensation — especially considering that most of the negotiating positions were drafted, which was the key task of the Negotiating Group. Therefore, the question arises how to measure the workload of the members, how many meetings have there been per year in the past period, and how many times have the members delegated their substitutes for these meetings, and what kind of work awaits them in the future when they will receive almost 650 euros each month in addition to the basic salary. ” from the KOD Organization note that among the members there are those who have achieved many privileges in addition to high monthly incomes. "The basic question is, why are these people not ready to contribute to the state without compensation? This issue is important because some of them regularly talk about patriotism during their public appearances. It would be fine for them to show by personal example that they are more interested in what they can do for the country, and not what the country can do for them," Mirza Krnić told "Vijesti".
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