The 35th Cabinet session – 28 December 2022

The Montenegrin Cabinet, at today's 35th session chaired by Prime Minister Dritan Abazović, adopted the Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Obligations and Basics of Proprietary Right in Air Transport.

The Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Olive Growing and Olive Oil was adopted.

The Cabinet adopted the Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Defence. The provisions have been harmonized with the Law on the Armed Forces of Montenegro, the Law on Health Care, the Law on Military Intelligence and the Law on the National Security Agency.

The Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Explosive Substances was adopted. This Draft Law provides for a ban on both the sale and use of explosives - category F2 (firecrackers), in order to raise the level of safety when handling explosives.

The Cabinet adopted the Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on the Transportation of Dangerous Goods. Given that Montenegro is in the process of joining the European Union, this Law represents another step towards harmonisation with EU policy in this area.

The Decree amending the Decree on feed additives and premixtures that can be placed on the market and the Decree amending the Decree on special hygiene requirements for animal origin products, which ensure the implementation of the Law on Food Safety and harmonisation with the EU legal acquis, were adopted.

The Decision on the amendment of the Decision on the preparation of the Spatial Plan of Montenegro was adopted, which extends the deadline for the preparation of the Plan until 1 October 2023.

The Cabinet made decisions on the formation of negotiation working groups for the preparation and management of negotiations on the accession of Montenegro to the European Union for the areas of legal acquis related to negotiation chapters 23 - Judiciary and fundamental rights and 24 - Justice, freedom and security.

The Cabinet adopted the National Action Plan for the implementation of the Open Government Partnership in Montenegro 2023-2024. The plan is focused on five thematic priorities, namely: Citizen participation; Open data and free access to information; Fiscal transparency; Strengthening integrity and public responsibility in the fight against corruption and Openness of local self-governments. It is expected that the implementation of reforms in five thematic priority areas will give additional momentum to Montenegro's EU accession process, confirm the Government's commitment to the principles and values of the growing international community of the Open Government Partnership, but also strengthen institutional and social resilience to global crisis situations and challenges. Within these five priorities, 20 measures/obligations and 68 activities are planned.

The Information on improving the network of state administration bodies was adopted. Improving the network will contribute to increasing the level of information security in terms of preventing unauthorized access to data, cyber attacks and service availability through the procurement and implementation of devices necessary for traffic control and encrypted communication, as well as active network equipment that provides greater reliability and flow speed data through the network of state administration bodies, which significantly reduces the degree of network outages due to the unavailability of active network equipment, which in the previous period represented a significant risk since most of the active network equipment was older than 10 years.

The Cabinet adopted the Information on the implementation of the certification authority (CA). It is a project that is one of the key prerequisites for the provision of electronic services to citizens and businesses. The introduction of the internal CA system is very important both for the economy and for citizens in terms of strengthening trust, as well as enabling identification and authentication, and electronic delivery to authorities and citizens, which will ultimately imply a much easier and more efficient communication. Also, the level of transparency of public administration will be significantly improved in this way.

The Report on the work of the Commission for monitoring the actions of competent authorities in investigations of cases of threats and violence against journalists, murders of journalists and attacks on media property for the period from 23 June to 5 December 2022 was adopted. This is the fourth Report of the Commission formed in 2021, which covers 10 cases, both those unresolved from the previous period and those that occurred in the current year. It was particularly pointed out that the Report also contains a Partial Report on the work of the Police and the Prosecutor's Office in the case of the murder of Duško Jovanović, editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Dan.

The Cabinet adopted the Information on activities on the establishment of the Western Balkan Cyber Capacity Campus (WB3C). As stated in the Information, it is planned that the Campus will be located in the Science and Technology Park of Montenegro. Completion of the premises adaptation is scheduled for the second quarter of 2023, when the programme activities of the Campus will begin.

The Cabinet adopted the Information on the implementation of the contract on the implementation of the Information System for monitoring energy and water consumption in the public sector with the proposal of the annex to the contract for the implementation of Phases 2 and 3. The funds for the project implementation were provided from a loan from KfW Bank in the amount of 45 million euros, then a grant from the European Commission, through the Regional Energy Efficiency Programme ( REEP Plus ), through the Western Balkan Investment Framework (WBIF) in the amount of 4.7 million euros. Also, the aforementioned contracts stipulate that the Government will provide its own contribution up to the amount of 10 million euros.

Full press release in Montenegrin is available here.