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Authors: Vladimir Vučković, Mira Popović, Daliborka Uljarević (ed.)
Publishing year: 2020
Montenegro was granted candidate status in December 2001, and in June 2012, the European Union (EU) opened accession negotiations with Montenegro. After eight years, the European Commission (EC) country report1 notes limited progress in 25 chapters, good progress in seven chapters, while for one chapter it noted that no progress has been made.
Accession negotiations with Montenegro started with the so-called new approach of the European Union, which referred to Chapter 23 (Judiciary and Fundamental Rights) and 24 (Justice, Freedom and Security), as starting and ending points. Thus, the advance in these chapters has become crucial for the overall dynamics and quality of Montenegrin EU accession negotiations.
This study, the first one in a series of three, aims to scrutinize one of three political membership indicators that the EU closely monitors during the accession process - the fight against corruption. Judicial reform, strengthening regional cooperation and the improvement of goodneighborly relations will be additionally addressed. These EU membership conditions are included in the most important strategic documents on the enlargement policy, starting with the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA), i.e. the Stabilization and Association Process (SAP), as well as the new negotiating framework adopted in 2012, according to which Montenegro started negotiations.
The views and opinions in this analysis “Balkanization instead of Europeanization - fight against corruption in Montenegro” are partially expressed in the “EU’s Failure in Europeanizing Montenegro”, a doctorial thesis of the main author, defended at Masaryk University in 2018.