Decision of Member States to start drafting the Treaty on Accession with Montenegro constitutes a great step on Montenegro’s path to membership in the European Union. This is the moment at which Montenegro’s place in the European Union starts assuming its final shape, says European Commission when speaking about the recent decision of the EU Member States to have the newly formed Work Group started drafting the Treaty on Accession for our country. Although there are still no clear indications of what the Treaty is to contain, or how it will differ from the others, the signals that Montenegro is getting from Brussels indicate that the work is going on according to the plan.
On 13 May this year, Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the European Union held the inaugural meeting of the Ad Hoc Work Group for drafting the Treaty on Accession of Montenegro to the European Union. This was an important step in the final stage of the accession process.
As it was stated by the Cyprus Presidency at that time, it was an important turning point confirming that enlargement remains a credible and strategic priority of the European Union and that the process of European integration of the Western Balkan countries continues making progress.
The establishment of the Work Group was approved by the ambassadors of the European Union Member States on 22 April. The task of the Work Group is to draft the Treaty on Accession of Montenegro that will be finished after the finalization of the accession negotiations and alignment of all the required legal and technical provisions.
Such ad hoc work groups are not a part of the regular negotiation structure. They are formed in the final stages of the accession process to prepare the final text of the Accession Treaty. Similar work group was established also in the final stage of negotiations with Croatia in 2011, after all negotiation chapters were closed. Together with representatives of Croatia, it worked on the technical level to fine tune the draft of the Accession Treaty before it was signed in December that year.
European Commission has confirmed today that this is the moment in which Montenegro’s place in the European Union starts assuming its final form.
„Decision of the Member States to start drafting the Accession Treaty with Montenegro constitutes a great step on Montenegro’s path to the membership in the EU. It recognizes the progress Montenegro has made and encourages acceleration of reforms. Of course, we welcome this new stage of the accession negotiations with Montenegro. This is the moment at which Montenegro’s place in the European Union starts assuming its clear contours“, state the representatives of the European Union in Brussels for Eurokaz.
It is already certain that the treaty that will be prepared for Montenegro will differ in some segments from the accession treaties signed earlier by new member states. In Brussels they are already discussing whether the new enlargement wave should contain new safeguards that would ensure European Union a more efficient response if the state deviates from the undertaken commitments after the accession.
According to the recent „non-paper“ signed by five Member States of the European Union, the future treaties will contain a new template that will be signed in the end of the negotiation process by the candidate country, to secure that the future enlargements will strengthen the EU.
The document proposes additional strengthening of the existing safeguards and transitional measures that were applied in previous enlargement rounds, as well as introduction of new safeguards, particularly in the field of the rule of law. There are also proposals for temporary and transitional restrictions of the voting rights.
According to Reuters, the document was signed by Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
The document that the relevant media had an insight in underlines that „simple copying of previous accession treaties will not do“ for new enlargements and that EU should use this opportunity to introduce necessary improvements.
„That will be of key importance for preserving and increasing political and public support to enlargement, which is in its turn of essential importance, given the need for ratification of the accession treaties in all member states“, reads the document.
The proposal is that European Union upgrades the existing sectorial safeguards and transitional measures from the earlier enlargements.
„These safeguards (in the field of judiciary and the interior, internal market or economic situation) should again be included into the future accession treaties, but we have to assess if they are still sufficiently broad to respond to current challenges“, underlines the document.
According to this proposal, the new safeguards could be needed in the fields like economic security and resilience to foreign interference.
To our question of whether they have already considered which safeguards will be included into the treaty, the EC says that they are still considering how they could be regulated.
„As for the safeguards, we are considering how they could be regulated in all future accession treaties. The goal is simple: to ensure that the obligations undertaken during the negotiation process, particularly those that refer to „fundamentals“ are respected after the accession. This is about credibility, trust and proper functioning of the Union“, says European Commission.
The Minister of European Affairs, Maida Gorčević, recently also noted that the work group worked according to the time framework set in advance.
“Writing a treaty of a new generation requires time and discussion about all the issues. It will all go in parallel with the process of closing the chapters. After the inaugural session, the work group had a few more meetings. They have their clear discussion calendar, and everything is in order there. These are now still technical meetings, and they are dealing with the paperwork. Currently they have a scheduled session about chapter 13 that refers to fisheries,” says Gorčević for the Daily paper Dan.
In the meantime, on 14 July, Montenegro closed two more negotiation chapters.
Having closed the chapter 8 – Competition Policy and the chapter 29 – Customs Union, Montenegro’s total score in the „European race“ is 18 chapters, out of the total 33 that have been opened.
Ambassadors of EU Member States gave a green light for closing of two additional chapters in the negotiations with Montenegro – chapter 8 (Competition Policy) and chapter 29 (Customs Union). After closing of these two chapters, Montenegro will have 18 out of 33 chapters in the negotiations with the EU closed. Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU says that the enlargement momentum is being built, which shows the importance that Ireland attaches to the enlargement during its presidency.
By Jovana Đurišić
This text was published in the 18th issue of the magazine Eurokaz.