Firefighters demand urgent legal regulation of the system

Representatives of protection and rescue services, firefighters and the Chamber of Engineers will ask the authorities to urgently start parallel drafting of systemic laws that would finally regulate the areas of firefighting, fire protection and emergency situations, "Vijesti" has learned.

This position was agreed on Tuesday, at a meeting in Podgorica, attended by commanders and representatives of protection and rescue services from several Montenegrin municipalities, representatives of the Chamber of Engineers and trade union organizations of firefighters and rescuers.

The joint conclusion of the meeting participants is to organize a discussion with the competent institutions as soon as possible, at which they would convey to them the position that it is necessary to urgently and simultaneously work on the drafting of the Fire Fighting Law, the Fire Protection Law and the Emergency Situations Law, or the Protection and Rescue Law.

Therefore, they sent a request for a meeting to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and informed the Directorate for Protection and Rescue, headed by Miodrag Bešović, Minister of the Interior Danilo Šaranović and the Prime Minister Milojko Spajic.

According to unofficial information from "Vijesti", firefighters have already received an invitation for a meeting that should be held early next week.

The explanation of the conclusion states that the expert and professional public has been demanding the adoption of these systemic laws for at least ten years. The initiative to fully regulate the field of firefighting in Montenegro was launched in 2013.

"In discussions so far with the most important institutions of the system, understanding and a desire to start solving the accumulated problems, as well as passing these systemic laws, have been shown," the firefighters stated.

The meeting also agreed who, on behalf of the Chamber of Engineers, protection and rescue services, and firefighter-rescue union organizations, will speak with the competent institutions.

Engineers were delegated as representatives of the Chamber of Engineers in the field of fire protection. Ismet Ganić i Mlađen Simović. Protection and rescue services will represent Slavko Tadic i Maksim Mandic, while the president of the Firefighters' Union of Montenegro at the Union of Free Trade Unions will also participate in the talks. Goran Tripković and President of the Professional Committee of Firefighters and Rescuers of Montenegro at the Union of Administration and Justice Ratko Pejović.

Tripković told "Vijesti" that for now they do not want to provide official information or statements while "negotiations" with the Ministry of the Interior are ongoing, because, as he said, such an agreement with the authorities is so that the talks go in a positive direction.

After the meeting, he added, the public will be informed of the outcome.

For years, this trade union organization has been warning that Montenegro is, as they claim, the only country in Europe that does not have a clearly regulated issue of how to become a firefighter.

They pointed out that the law now only recognizes basic requirements - that the candidate is not older than 25 years, that he is a Montenegrin citizen and that he has no criminal record. The bottom line, as they previously stated, is that everyone who wants to do this job must pass physical, psychological and professional ability tests.

The Firefighters' Union of Montenegro believes that the importance of enacting laws that would more precisely regulate this area is not sufficiently recognized by the umbrella institution in the protection and rescue system.

Tripković has previously publicly stated that the adoption of a law on firefighting would regulate the system at least in the way it has been done in European countries, that is, in countries that have recognized firefighting as one of the pillars of protection and rescue.

According to his earlier assessments, this law should prescribe how one becomes a firefighter, how training is conducted, how firefighters are hired, promoted through the service, and under what conditions they retire.