Government adopts action plans on negotiation chapters 23 and 24

Podgorica, Montenegro (27 June 2013) – At today's session, the Government of Montenegro adopted the Action Plans on Chapters 23 and 24, which will be submitted to the European Commission for further consideration later today, State Secretary for European Integration and Chief Negotiator Ambassador Aleksandar-Andrija Pejović told the press conference earlier today.

The Action Plan on Chapter 23 deals with issues related to judiciary, anticorruption and fundamental rights. In the field of judiciary, the Chief Negotiator particularly stressed measures related to the adoption of constitutional amendments, which will provide independency and autonomy of the judiciary system. The action plan envisages not only activities towards upgrading impartiality of the judiciary through the rationalisation of the judiciary network, but also towards training programmes, improvement of ethical code of judges and prosecutors, and advancement of judicial responsibility and professionalism, Mr Pejović underlined.

In the area of anticorruption, according to the action plan, efforts are to be made in establishing a new Anti-corruption Agency, amending the Law on Prevention of Conflict of Interest, as much as the Law on Financing Political Parties and Electoral Campaigns. One of the crucial issues in this area is also the establishment of a special prosecution office for combating organised crime, corruption and war crimes, the Chief Negotiator noted.

Fundamental rights represent third and very extensive area of this chapter and the action plan provides for a lot of measures dealing with issues related to the prevention of torture, freedom of expression, antidiscrimination, children’s rights, etc.

The Action Plan on Chapter 24 addresses issues related to asylum, visa regime and implementation of requirements from the Schengen Action Plan, readmission, judiciary cooperation in civil and criminal matters and activities related to terrorism and fight against counterfeiting of euro.

Chief Negotiator Pejović stressed that these action plan will serve as a basis for drafting a report the European Commission will deliver to member states for further consideration and decision making.

“After member states mark this report positive, we will be given an invitation letter to introduce our negotiating position for chapters 23 and 24 and after that we will convene an intergovernmental conference, which will enable us to open these two chapters by the end of 2013,” Mr Pejović concluded.