Press conference following 21st Cabinet session

Podgorica, Montenegro (13 April 2017) -- At the press conference following 21st Cabinet session, Deputy Prime Minister for Political System, Internal and Foreign Policy and Minister of Justice Zoran Pažin said that today's session goes beyond the conventional agenda for its importance, as Draft Law on confirmation of North Atlantic Treaty with the Protocol to the North Atlantic Treaty on the accession of Greece and Turkey has been adopted.

“There are moments in the development of the community when you need to pause, draw a line, look back behind you, and then turn to the future powerfully and vigorously. When we look back we see that the past more than ten years are adorned with a dedicated and devoted work of state institutions in order to achieve this goal, and not only state institutions but also civil society and the society as a whole,” Deputy Prime Minister Pažin emphasised.

Speaking of the achievements of the Government in the first quarter of 2017, Deputy Prime Minister Zoran Pažin said that the Prime Minister and Government members noted with satisfaction that it is a high degree of realisation of commitments for the first quarter.

“This is the result of teamwork and approach, as well as the mutual solidarity and support among Government members and ministries they are head of. The degree of realisation is 90.6 percent, which is comparatively more than it was in the past.” “... The social environment in which the Government worked was marked by a political crisis, to which the Government has not contributed, but the crisis was created and artificially supported by forces that seek opportunity in the major destruction, in order to attack and stultify state institutions. We will not be looking at that in the future, but we will continue to implement the objectives laid down in the Government more committed and more vigorously,” Deputy Prime Minister Pažin said.

Concerning Draft Law on confirmation of North Atlantic Treaty with the Protocol to the North Atlantic Treaty on the accession of Greece and Turkey, Minister of Foreign Affairs Srđan Darmanović said that “Montenegro, which has historically experienced and overcome many difficult challenges, really needs such a solid and long-term guarantee of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of its statehood.” “... Value aspect of membership in NATO, which is also contained in the North Atlantic Treaty, is not less important than security for Montenegro. NATO is a community of values, peace, stability, democracy, good neighborly relations, the rule of law and economic prosperity,” Minister Darmanović stated.

Speaking of the impact of the current situation in Croatia’s Agrokor on Montenegro’s Merkator and Ledo which operate within it, Minister of Economy Dragica Sekulić stressed: “There is neither risk to their businesses nor spillover risks from Croatia’s Agrokor to Merkator or Ledo in Montenegro at the moment.”

Presenting The first quarterly report on the implementation of the Programme of Montenegro's accession to the European Union for the period 2017-2018, Minister of European Affairs Aleksandar Andrija Pejović stated: “We are pleased to say that the degree of implementation of all measures that we were planning on our way towards EU amounted 82 percent for the first quarter. Therefore, it is about some minor measures that are not fulfilled, some of the by-laws and certain strategic documents, that the Government will certainly examine in the next few weeks, so we will surely have almost one hundred percent compliance.”

PUBLIC RELATIONS SERVICE OF THE GOVERNMENT OF MONTENEGRO