Today, twenty-two nongovernmental organizations submitted to the Administrative Committee of the Parliament of Montenegro an Initiative for starting the procedure for determining the conflict of interest of Mimo Draskovic, member of the RTCG Council.

The initiative was submitted due to the public political acting of the member of the Council which should be a professional and depoliticized body. Namely, on 9 April 2018, Mimo Draskovic gave an active and open political support to the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party of Socialists Milo Djukanovic at the convention in Bijelo Polje.

The Administrative Board was requested to start the procedure before the Anti-Corruption Agency in order to determine the violation of norms of the Anti-Corruption Law, which apply to the prevention of the conflict of interest during the performance of the public function and to the limitations regarding the performance of the public function of Draskovic. »

On the occasion of another Student Day – 4 April – the Centre for Civic Education (CCE) notes, with regret, that students remain one the most inactive social group in Montenegro, which does not use its potentials nor it responds to their own and social needs in direction of improvement of their position and democratic development of Montenegrin society.

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The second training module of for representatives of four civil society organizations, whose projects are supported through the project “Let’s put corruption into museum!“, was completed today in Podgorica, in the organization of the Centre for Civic Education (CCE).

The aim of this training programme was to strengthen the capacities of local civil society organizations of different developmental level, which will in coming period, through supported projects, carry out activities that will contribute to fighting and preventing corruption within their respective local communities, i.e. in Podgorica, Ulcinj and Niksic.

Within the first three-day module, held from 23 to 25 March 2018, participants were able to learn more about project management, focusing on projects funded from EU funds, starting from the importance of the project cycle, through the drafting and development logical framework matrix, to narrative and financial reporting. The second three-day module was held from 30 March to  1 April 2018, focusing on specific communication tools to enhance project visibility, Guidance for EU Funded Projects on Visibility and Communication, use of social networks in project communication, as well as on developing visibility materials in accordance with the EC visibility rules.

The project “Let’s put corruption in the museum!” aims to contribute to decreasing the corruption at the local level and strengthening citizens’ engagement in the fight against corruption at the local level in Montenegro. The project envisages to influence the increase of transparency of the work of municipalities in Montenegro, as well as to the implementation of anti-corruption policies, through direct cooperation of CSOs, state institutions and citizens.

The project “Let’s put corruption in the museum!”, the CCE conducts in cooperation with NGO Center for Monitoring and Research (CeMI), NGO Bonum from Pljevlja, NGO UL-Info from Ulcinj and NGO Za Druga from Petrovac, with associates – the Ministry of Public Administration and the Anti-corruption Agency, and it is funded by the EU Delegation to Montenegro.

Miloš Knežević, PR/programme associate

Centre for Civic Education (CCE) has today, within the project SPINoFACT 2 – Political advertising between spin and facts’, presented first findings of monitoring of media campaign for presidential elections which are to be conducted on 15 April 2018.

CCE project assistant, Bojana Knezevic, emphasized that this is an overview of campaign in media in the observed period from 15 to 26 March when the deadline has expired for submission of candidacies for president of Montenegro. ’Monitoring encompasses qualitative and quantitative research. In this regard, the total number of media releases of candidates as per type of media and as per candidates was monitored, as well as presence of candidates in media, planned and non-planned releases, tone of campaign of candidates, topics which are dominant in campaign, mutual attacks and criticism of presidential candidates’, said she. In addition, she clarified that research included 17 printed and electronic media, as follows – televisions – RTCG1, Vijesti, PinkM and Prva; daily newspapers – Vijesti, Dan, Pobjeda, Dnevne novine and Sloboda, as well as portals – Cafe del Montenegro (CdM), Analitika, Vijesti, RTCG, Antena M, Standard, FOS Media and IN4S.

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Centre for Civic Education (CCE) assesses that Ministry of Culture is deceiving the public of Montenegro by claiming that ‘Government of Montenegro does not wish to determine this and other legal texts without previous recommendations, i.e. expert assessments contained both in the analysis of the Council of Europe, and the necessary expert opinions by the European Commission‘. Precisely the pressure on Working Group for development of the Draft Media Law to exert its task through quick and intensive process, but without clear strategy, denies allegations of Ministry of Culture. After all, if this is all as the Ministry of Culture is publicly claiming, why the rush to, at the expense of quality, out of the sight of the public, finish the work on a legal text which was not changed for more than 15 years now for less than two months, and maybe even prior to publishing of the analysis of the European Commission and the Council of Europe?

Working group was imposed with obligation to prepare the Draft Media Law until 10 April 2018, whereby the authorised Ministry of Culture entered this process without any previously prepared assessment which would indicate problems in the application of the current Law, without defined methodology of work and without offered proposals for solutions for improvement of the existing state of affairs. »