In Montenegro, the essential question is who will implement the laws regulating the work of the media and social networks and how, the conference "The Future of the Fight Against Disinformation: Rules of the Game or a Game Without Rules" said.
At a conference organized by the Center for Democratic Transition, it was assessed that Montenegro can easily harmonize its legislation with the European Union (EU), but that the essence lies in implementation.
State Secretary at the Ministry of Culture and Media Neđeljko Rudović said that the goal of his department is to prepare an initial document, a roadmap, by the end of the summer, in order to determine which of the norms from the European Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Directive (DMA) are included in Montenegrin legislation.
"Our main job is to determine which of the norms in those two acts are already in our legal system, because last year we passed new media laws and norms relating to media independence and transparency of ownership," said Rudović.
According to him, all of this is already partly included in Montenegrin laws.
"Our goal is to create a harmonization table as soon as possible to see what we have, and from what we don't have, to see how we will incorporate it into our legal system," said Rudović, at the panel "What European rules bring to Montenegro."
As Rudović said, preliminary analyses show that in order to transfer all of this into the legal system, not only media laws, but also other laws will have to be changed.
"That's why it's important to prepare working material, and we have to prepare it by the end of the summer," Rudović pointed out.
Montenegro's obligation, as he emphasized, is to meet the interim benchmarks for closing the chapter by the end of 2026, ideally.
"So we have to complete the entire work, not in December 2026, but at least a few months earlier. Which means that we have work ahead of us that is equally important compared to the work we did when we prepared the media laws," Rudović said.
The Director of the Agency for Audiovisual Media Services (AMU), Sunčica Bakić, reminded that only one of the European regulators has managed to develop the capacities for the implementation of DSA, that the rest are in the development phase, and that Montenegro will have to move in that direction very soon.
She said that it is important for the EU to pursue proceedings against the social networks X and TikTok and show that it is ready to demonstrate that the implementation of the DSA is not in question.
"We cannot wait to see how this process will end. DSA encompasses multiple areas and markets, and for us, the key information is who the institutions that will implement this are and what they are responsible for. The key thing is to determine the network of institutions and who will coordinate that network," said Bakić.
She said she believes AMU is the first choice.
"If our government were clear about what the process is, there wouldn't be only two people working on it in the Ministry of Culture and Media. It will be very difficult to find people who would be ready to face that challenge," said Bakić.
As she pointed out, the Irish regulator has attracted people from platforms to come and work for them, and Montenegro cannot do that.
Lawyer Siniša Gazivoda, speaking about the DSA, said that it is an act that has direct application in member states, unlike directives.
Gazivoda pointed out that Montenegro has several options in the fight against disinformation and legal regulations.
"One option is to do something radical, like censorship, which will have no effect, another is to hide in the basement and wait for it to pass, and the third is to prepare for it to some extent," said Gazivoda.
Speaking about the media registry and transparency of ownership in the media, Bakić said that it is very difficult to resolve this issue.
"For twenty years, we have had one approach, we have entities that have given positions, licenses, permits, their acquired rights cannot be revised just like that. As for AMU, what we can do is encourage transparency, create a digital map and make data on official owners and persons associated with them available to the public," Bakić pointed out.
She said that they hope that this will stimulate debate and raise topics and see whether some people really own certain media outlets in Montenegro.
Rudović said that all media outlets operating in Montenegro, regardless of who owns them, must have 25 percent of their own production.
According to him, this means that the program will have to be made in Montenegro and deal with topics in Montenegro.
"We have introduced this obligation for the first time, it did not exist before. Secondly, all media that currently have licenses, i.e. national coverage, will not receive it automatically, but will receive it if the AMU assesses that we need another television station with a national frequency," said Rudović.
He reminded that AMU will use the study to see if there is a need for so many television stations in Montenegro.
"We are changing a lot in the public interest, and the essential question is how we are going to implement the law. AMU has a great responsibility and that is why it is important that it preserves the good reputation it has built in recent years and that it is a truly independent regulator that makes decisions in accordance with legal authority, not political circumstances," said Rudović.
Commenting on lawsuits aimed at financially burdening media and NGOs and deterring them from criticism (SLAPP lawsuits), Gazivoda said that the Montenegrin legal system does not even identify SLAPP lawsuits.
"We do not have institutional recognition. When it became clear that this was leading to a threat to freedom of expression, we had a series of EU acts on what should be done at the national level, such as the 2024 act on cross-border SLAPP lawsuits and the development of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, where SLAPP was recognized as something that has a deterrent effect on freedom of expression," said Gazivoda.
According to him, one thing that would make sense in the Montenegrin system is to assess early whether it is a SLAPP and to dismiss such lawsuits.
"It's bad that we don't have any mechanism for that," Gazivoda said.
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