Predrag Zenović appointed as the Chief Negotiator of Montenegro with the EU

At today’s session, the Government appointed Assoc. Dr. Predrag Zenović as the Chief Negotiator of Montenegro with the European Union and, after more than a year, filled one of the key positions for the negotiation process.

“As the Chief Negotiator, I will work with my colleagues from the Ministry of European Affairs on the goal defined by the citizens – for Montenegro to be the first next member state of the European Union as soon as possible,” said Zenović.

He said that the Ministry of European Affairs is facing a challenging period and that he sees strengthening the negotiation structure and speeding up the negotiation process as its most important task.

“It is important to establish harmony between the political and expert-technical segment within the negotiation process, with a special emphasis on cluster number 1 and temporary measures from negotiation chapters 23 and 24,” said Zenović.

According to him, the path of European integration must be established as a wider social dialogue in which citizens, the academic community, the civil sector, and political institutions participate, all with the goal of Montenegro becoming the next member state of the great European family.

 Asst. Dr. Predrag Zenović (1986) is a political science professor and researcher at the Humanities Studies of the University of Donja Gorica in Podgorica. He graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Belgrade and received his master’s degree in international law and human rights from the Faculty of Law in Riga.  After completing his doctoral studies in the field of political theory and European studies at LUISS in Italy and the University of Geneva, he was a fellow in the postdoctoral program at New Europe College, Bucharest. He was awarded the prestigious 2020/2021 Fulbright Fellowship for a research project in feminist political theory at the New School for Social Research in New York. Zenović is the author of two books on political theory, one that deals with Montenegro and the other that is dedicated to the European Union. He is the author of over thirty academic papers in national and international journals on citizenship, constitutionalism, European studies, identity, gender studies, and other areas of normative political theory. He is also employed at the Faculty of Legal Sciences and the Faculty of Culture and Tourism – study program International Studies for Hotel Industry and Management – Vatel. He is a member of several working and expert groups for the drafting of laws (Law on Scientific and Research Activities) and strategic documents at the state and local level (National Cultural Development Program, Cultural Development Program of the Municipality of Budva). He is a member of the Committee for Sociology and Political Science of the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts. In addition to the Montenegrin language, he speaks English, Italian, Spanish, and French, with basic knowledge of Russian and German.