On Monday 25 June, Montenegro opened a new EU accession negotiation chapter – on economic and monetary policy (Chapter 17).
With this chapter, Podgorica has opened 31 of the 35 negotiation chapters – three of which are provisionally closed. Bulgaria's Foreign Affairs Minister Ekaterina Zakharieva told press that it was important to work on closing chapters. The negotiations were started in June 2012.
Meeting the same day, the EU-Montenegro stabilisation and association council encouraged the candidate country to pursue the implementation of reforms more proactively and vigorously, and to obtain concrete results on the rule of law, especially on the fight against corruption and organised crime. It also called for a secure environment to be guaranteed that is appropriate for the freedom of expression, and it called for the media to be protected from all political pressure.
The statement additionally said that a comprehensive electoral reform should be envisaged in order to take account of the conclusions and repeated recommendations of the election observation missions.
European Commissioner for Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn told press that he welcomed the gradual return of the opposition parties to the parliament. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)