Montenegro is ready to open remaining chapters and enter final phase of EU accession

VIDEO: DPM Pažin meets with EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn

Montenegro is ready to open the remaining three negotiating chapters this year and to fully devote itself to fulfilling the conditions for completing the negotiations in all negotiating chapters in the coming period, Deputy Prime Minister Zoran Pažin said at today's meeting with the European Commissioner for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn at the headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels.

DPM Pažin voiced full readiness of Montenegro to enter the final stage of the negotiating process by obtaining the final benchmarks for closing negotiations in the most demanding negotiating chapters 23 and 24 related to the rule of law.

We think that we have met the highest number of benchmarks and that we are able to talk with partners in the European Commission to propose to the Council to set the benchmarks for closing negotiations in chapters 23 and 24 this year, the Deputy Prime Minister said.

Commissioner Hahn welcomed the reform efforts Montenegro did and expressed the expectation that Montenegro will continue to be a role model for other countries in the region having in mind the quality and speed of the adoption of European standards and values. In this regard, he stressed that Montenegro remains the region's leader in the process of European integration.

He pointed out that the European Union is firmly committed to partnership with Montenegro, stressing that further progress towards full EU membership will be based exclusively on the individual merits of the candidate countries. The Deputy Prime Minister also met today in Brussels with Director for Europe and Central Asia in the European External Action Service (EEAS) Thomas Mayr-Harting. The European official expressed gratitude to Montenegro for contributing to European peace and security through full alignment of state policy with a common European foreign and security policy.