France sees Montenegro as a serious candidate for EU membership

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of European Affairs Jovana Marović met with Ambassador of France to Montenegro Christian Thimonier. New energy and enthusiasm are noticeable in both the Government and Montenegrin society, and we can see that reforms in the judiciary have indeed begun. This should be used to convince the European Commission, but also the member states, that Montenegro is really ready for membership, said Ambassador Thimonier.

France is here to provide technical support to Montenegro, by cooperating with the prosecutor's office, providing expertise to your administration and continuing cooperation between the Ministry of European Affairs and the General Secretariat for European Affairs (SGAE), a body of the French Prime Minister Services, said Thimonier.

He added that France sees Montenegro as a serious candidate for EU membership and is ready to support it on that path.

There's a big job ahead of us, meetings with representatives of embassies, the international community, the NGO sector. Also, the formation and strengthening of the Ministry of European Affairs is underway, which has an important role in coordinating and fulfilling obligations in the integration process, but also in communicating with the European Commission, Marović explained.

According to her, the Government focuses on negotiating chapters 23 and 24, where the results are already visible.

We want to meet the final benchmarks by the end of this year, Marović said.

She added that France is an important partner to this Government, which was confirmed by the visit to Paris in May this year, during which very useful meetings were held at the political level.

It is important that we have a clear European perspective. Enlargement policy is one of the most successful EU policies, Marović concluded.