A member of the ruling coalition FORCA announced the possibility of terminating cooperation with the minority parties and the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), after the Law on Spatial Planning and Building Construction was passed by a narrow majority in the Parliament yesterday.
This was announced to "Vijesta" yesterday by the deputy of that party, Genci Nimanbegu, who was the only one who voted against the law, after several days of discussions with representatives of the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism (MORT) and DPS.
Yesterday, the majority in the Assembly was brought by the voice of MP Adrijan Vuksanović (HGI), who the night before the vote said that he would not support the law, but changed his mind and supported the solutions of the Minister of Sustainable Development and Tourism (MORT) Pavle
Radulović, so with his vote DPS, BS, LP and SD had the necessary majority for the law, which is disputed by many municipalities, part of the professional public and the non-governmental sector...
Nimanbegu believes that by supporting this law, HGI and BS violated the key political principles of the agreement on the joint action of minority parties, such as the decentralization of Java, which is why the continuation of cooperation with them should be reconsidered. He believes that the continuation of cooperation with other parties should be examined, given that the coalition agreement contains the same principles "in a milder version".
"This should certainly be discussed at the meeting of the Albanian coalition, not in a month, but immediately, like tomorrow, and see what we have to do. We have to see what such a degree of political difference can bring us in some key matters or how we will continue to cooperate. The key issues in the country have been resolved, NATO has been resolved, if the conceptual differences are so great, that is certainly one of the reasons for the termination of cooperation", Nimanbegu told "Vijesta".
Liberal (LP) and minority parties disputed the provisions of the law, which transfers all decision-making powers regarding the spatial plan to MORT, while municipalities only participate in its preparation. They were satisfied with the fact that they agreed with MORT on changes regarding supposedly greater rights of municipalities.
Nimanbegu submitted 16 amendments to the law to the Parliament yesterday, none of which passed the Parliament, nor the parent Committee for Tourism, Agriculture, Ecology and Spatial Planning. DPS MPs in the Committee, which lasted for almost three hours, abstained from these amendments while they voted against them in the plenary session.
"We agreed on a complete part of technical misunderstandings, but we did not agree on one conceptual one. The only point of separation we have reached is the concept of space planning itself. And I can say that we agreed to disagree", said Radulović in the Assembly.
He believes that through the amendments, they have found a way to enable municipalities to participate more actively in decision-making and plan development, without violating the concept of the law.
Yesterday, the committee accepted 20 "acceptable" amendments, which were the result of several days of reconciliation between the DPS and the coalition partners and which were sufficient for the MPs of BS, LP and HGI to support the law.
The key changes to those amendments are that, instead of the Government making the decision on the development of the plan, in Article 24, which defines the area, it was added that before the decision is made, the Government sends a draft decision to the local governments for their opinion.
A significant change is that the first step in the development of the spatial plan - the urban project, is brought by the local governments instead of the Government, on the proposal of the mayor of the municipality.
However, Nimanbegu believes that these amendments will "significantly improve the existing text", but that they are not enough for FORCA to support, because the opinion of local self-governments is not binding for the Government.
In his amendments, he proposed not to adopt a plan for the general regulation of Montenegro, but plans for the general regulation of local self-governments, which Radulović and the DPS MPs rejected.
"That is not the concept of this law and I cannot accept it. We cannot tear up the spatial plan because in that case we have not changed anything", said Radulović.
In the past few days, the law caused a heated controversy in the Montenegrin public, numerous professional and non-governmental organizations reacted, and the "Green MPs" in the European Parliament wrote to the Government to withdraw the text from the parliamentary procedure.
The director of the MANS research center Dejan Milovac announced yesterday that, apart from the representatives of the Albanian coalition, the other members of the ruling majority have once again shown that they do not serve the interests of the Montenegrin people, but only the construction lobby and its associated criminal underworld.
"The centralization of decision-making power, deprivation of the rights of local self-governments and citizens, non-compliance with the Constitution of Montenegro and other legal acts are just some of the major objections to the draft law, which the professional and lay public have expressed recently", said Milovac.
One of the novelties of this law is the abolition of the construction and use permit and the introduction of the application of works with the documentation prescribed by law as a condition for construction. One spatial plan for protected areas and one spatial plan for the whole country is adopted, unlike the previous system, when a plan was made for each municipality individually...
Grbović's resignation: Popović is in favor of a law that goes beyond the principles of the LP
Liberal Party official Goran Grbović decided to leave the party because its president Andrija Popović voted in favor of the controversial law.
Grbović told Popović that his decision completely contradicts the political principles of liberals, "Vijesti" learned.
Grbović was on the electoral list of the LP for the local elections in Kotor.
He was a member of the Board of Directors of AD Luka Kotor.
The presidents of the LP committees in Budva, Cetinje, Tivat, Bar, Rožaje, Petnjica, Danilovgrad and Bijelo Polje asked the LP president last week not to support the law in the Assembly.
Popović then refused their request to hold an electronic session of the Main Board, announcing that he would support the law.
If the MP of the LP had voted against it yesterday, the law would not have passed because it did not have the support of the MP of the Albanians Resolute coalition - Nimanbegu.
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