WORLD NEWS FOR MONTENEGRO DIASPORA
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SOURCE: ANTENA M / AUTHOR:M.J. GDNUS
The last meeting before the Intergovernmental Conference will be held tomorrow, when it will be definitively known how many chapters Montenegro will close.
Member states need to approve the closing of chapters and the decision is made unanimously.
Minister of European Affairs Maida Gorčević said yesterday in the show "Budimo budni" that she hopes that we will close four chapters next week at the Intergovernmental Conference during the Hungarian presidency. She pointed out that after closing these chapters, citizens will feel serious benefits in the coming period.
Gorčević pointed out that Montenegro has been negotiating with the European Union for 12 years about our accession, and that only three chapters have been closed during that period.
"We are now managing to close 4 chapters in just one year. This is an exceptional success of the Government and Parliament," she emphasized.
She recalled that these are chapters 7, 10, 20 and 31, which concern intellectual property, information society and media, industrial policy and entrepreneurship, as well as foreign and security policy.
She stressed that after the closure of these chapters, citizens will feel serious benefits in the coming period.
She emphasized that she hopes that the four chapters will be closed next week at the Intergovernmental Conference during the Hungarian Presidency. This, she adds, is an indicator of the quality of work in the previous 12 months.
"We will not enter the European Union if we do not have serious monitoring of the court decisions that have been issued for journalists but also for other cases when we are talking about the rule of law, because these are chapters that we cannot close so easily. Chapters 23 and 24 are the chapters that are opened first but are closed last," Gorčević emphasized.
Gorčević emphasized that the plan is to close 26 chapters together with these four chapters by the end of 2026.
"It sounds ambitious, but we have made a serious analysis of all the things that Montenegro is expected to accomplish on that path. By the end of 2026, regarding chapters 23 and 24, we have an exceptionally large amount of work ahead of us," concluded Gorčević.
Expectations are realistic that we will enter the European Union in 2028, says Gorčević.
"We have never been closer, now, with the closing of these four chapters, we are on the very threshold of a historic moment," she says.
Commenting on the case in the Podgorica high school that alarmed the Montenegrin public, after a reported case of sexual harassment by a teacher, Gorčević said that the very fact that something like this is happening in a school where children are supposed to be protected shows that we must build institutions, strengthen the education system, but also build a system within the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Police Directorate.
She emphasized that in the coming days, the investigation will show whether the reaction of the principal of the Podgorica high school was in accordance with the law and applicable regulations and whether she should have reacted differently.
"I feel sorry for young Sara who is going through ugly comments on social networks and from other people, some need to be encouraged, so that if they are victims tomorrow, they do not feel that they are to blame or that they caused something," Gorčević emphasized.
Gorčević emphasizes that we need to create a better environment, so that when sexual harassment or similar phenomena occur, society protects the victim, and that the perpetrators are held accountable for these acts.
