The European Commissioner for Enlargement, Olivér Várhelyi, called on Montenegro, on Monday 13 December, to continue its reforms, at the end of the fourteenth meeting of the Accession Conference with Montenegro at Ministerial level.
“Montenegro has already lost time on reforms; now we need to speed things up”, he stressed. For the Commissioner, there is a need for a stable government and a clear parliamentary majority, as well as a commitment from the Parliament to move forward with reforms.
While welcoming the progress that has been made by the country over the past year, the Commissioner stressed the need to make progress in the area of the Rule of law, in particular media freedom and freedom of expression, and the judiciary.
Mr Várhelyi and Slovenian State Secretary Gašper Dovžan reiterated that, in order to move forward in the enlargement process, Montenegro needed to make progress on the accession chapters related to the Rule of law, which would allow chapters to be closed in other areas.
For his part, Montenegro’s Minister for Economic Development, Jakov Milatović, recalled that, since the arrival of his government, the country had made progress in the field of the Rule of law, convergence in the economic sphere and public administration reform, and was 100% aligned with EU foreign policy. He added that his government had presented an action plan last week which identifies all the priorities and how to tackle them. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)