Marijana Camović Velicković, Janko Ljumović and Nikola Tatar were appointed today as members of the Council of Radio and Television of Montenegro (RTCG).
55 MPs voted for their appointment, one was against, and one abstained.
The Assembly did not support the proposal of the Administrative Board to appoint Dragoljub Duško Vuković, who was proposed by several NGOs, and Niko Martinović, the candidate proposed by the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts (CANU), to the Council of the Agency for Audiovisual Media Services (SAMU).
Out of a total of 56 MPs, 12 voted in favor of the proposal, while the remaining 44 abstained.
During that vote, cries of "Oh, my Europe" were heard from the assembly hall.
The Council of the Agency for Audiovisual Media Services has been in a reduced composition since December last year, as the mandates of representatives of non-governmental organizations in the field of media, Milan Radović and the Montenegrin PEN Center, Rajko Todorović, have expired. Although the competition was supposed to be announced in the middle of last year, Mandić did so in January this year, but soon withdrew the invitation, explaining that he was doing so "due to a technical error." Two candidacies were submitted for the repeated competition - Vuković and Martinović, but the Administrative Board assessed them as incomplete at the end of March.
The NGO that nominated Vuković at the time announced that such a decision by the Administrative Board was "politically motivated and legally unfounded, but also a clear expression of the ruling majority's intention to capture the media sector through party politics at the cost of jeopardizing Montenegro's European path."
A few days later, a warning arrived from the Delegation of the European Union (EU) in Podgorica.
They said that it is urgently necessary to appoint new members of SAMU, in order to ensure its functioning and independence.
"For Montenegro to meet its ambitious plan to complete accession negotiations by the end of 2026 and meet the final benchmarks for the negotiation chapters on the rule of law, it is crucial to ensure the consistent implementation of all laws related to the rule of law, including the Law on Audiovisual Media Services and the Law on RTCG. This is necessary to ensure Montenegro's commitment to fundamental reforms and further progress in the accession process based on merit," the EU Delegation said.
As SAMU was not complete in June, the European Commission (EC) noted this in the latest non-paper on Montenegro's progress in chapters 23 (judiciary and fundamental rights) and 24 (justice, freedom, security).
The EC said that the efficient implementation of the new laws on audiovisual media services and the national public broadcaster in Montenegro is being slowed down by delays in the transparent and merit-based appointments of members of the SAMU and the RTCG Council.
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