Montenegrin Capacity Building for Approximation of EU Legislation

Supported by: SlovakAid, a Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Programme

The project "Montenegrin capacity building for approximation of EU legislation" began in June 2012. It has been implemented by NISPAcee, in co-operation with the Project Partner Institution, Human Resources Management Authority. The project is supported by SlovakAid and the project’s activities are scheduled for one year.

Short description of the project:

Montenegro (MN), as a candidate country of the European Union, is expected to begin intense negotiations regarding accession to the Euro zone and the related process of harmonisation of its national laws with the acquis communautaire in June 2012. It will be a long-term and complicated process requiring both capable negotiators amongst government representatives, as well as a sufficient number of well-trained state officials working in the central bodies of state administration, who will be the direct actors during the integration of directives, resolutions, and decisions of the European Union into generally binding national legal regulations. The complexity of the approximation process is also highlighted by the fact that the law of the European Union today consists of almost 18,000 applicable legal regulations.

Therefore, the partner organisations developed this project with the aim of providing practical information at all stages of the approximation process, together with guidance as to how to approach the changes in the process of law-making and what should be expected.

Overall objective of the project:

Competent Montenegrin state authorities prepared for approximation and harmonisation with the acquis communautaire.

Project outputs:

1.1. Collection of policy papers.

1.2. Key state officials/legislators prepared for the process of approximation and harmonisation of Montenegrin laws.

Main project activities:

• Preparatory and working meetings.
• Analysis of the actual situation, consultations.
• Development of the collection of policy papers containing recommendations for individual steps of a legislative and other nature, which will be based on the actual current situation as regards the Montenegrin law-making process and aimed at its gradual preparation for the process of law approximation.
• The Seminar (MN) focused on the changes in legislative technique, law-making processes, and consequential requirements in the pre-accession period and during membership of the European Union. Although the accession of Montenegro to the European Union will be preceded by aseemingly long period of accession process, the "post-accession” period needs to already be incorporated into the presented project at this stage, since the preparation for legislative changes that will occur during that period need to begin now.
• Study trip (SK) with the purpose of visiting top Slovak central state administration bodies which have played a key role in the process of law approximation. During individual visits, the participants will have thepossibility to acquire additional information, as well as to establish useful contacts for further expert cooperation.
• Final conference (MN) with the aim of evaluating the implementation of the project in its entirety and the content of the recommendations contained in the "policy papers" and to represent an important milestone of expert cooperation between both countries in the process of Montenegro’s accession to the European Union.