The Centre for Civic Education (CCE) points out that funds for honoraria related to the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts (CANU) project, the Encyclopedia of Montenegro, were spent throughout 2023 and in early 2024, although the project officially commenced only on 1 September 2024.
A total of EUR 113,664.32 was spent on the Working Group for the initiation of work on the Encyclopedia from 7 February 2023 to 1 September 2024, of which EUR 104,044.52 was allocated to honoraria for members of this body, while EUR 9,619.79 covered additional expenses.
The 2023 CANU Work Programme envisaged the launch of this project, and on 30 January 2023, the CANU Presidency decided that preparatory activities would begin as early as 1 February, alongside the establishment of a Working Group composed of CANU leadership members themselves and three CANU employees. The task of this body was to conduct preparatory activities until the formation of the Editorial Board of the Encyclopedia.
According to the 2023 CANU Yearbook, which is still not publicly available, the Working Group held 21 meetings during that year, with members receiving remuneration for each session, amounting to a total of EUR 64,297.45. In 2024, an additional 12 meetings were held, for which a further EUR 39,747.08 was spent. The fee per member per session amounted to EUR 261.36, while as many as 22 participants attended the final, 33rd session alone, bringing the cost of that meeting to EUR 5,749.92.
The 2023 Yearbook states that the Working Group inventoried the materials of the former Lexicographic Institute of Montenegro, as well as earlier CANU materials related to previous attempts to develop the Encyclopedia of Montenegro. In addition to CANU’s General Alphabetical Index, a total of 2,355 encyclopaedic entries were reportedly identified and catalogued within CANU’s archives. The Alphabetical Index/Register and earlier working materials were also digitised, a study visit to the Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography in Zagreb was organised, meetings were held with selected experts regarding the structure and organisational framework for the Encyclopedia, an overview of encyclopaedias in the region was prepared, and the development of software support for the project was initiated. CANU also participated in the work of the Network of European Encyclopaedias. However, the same activities, with fewer details, are repeated in the 2024 Yearbook, which is likewise not publicly available, leaving it unclear when certain activities were carried out.
Although preparatory activities for such an important project are undoubtedly necessary, questions arise as to whether more than a year and a half was truly required for these activities, and why no clear internal criteria were developed during that period to ensure merit-based selection of contributors to the Encyclopedia of Montenegro.
The citizens of Montenegro financed as many as 33 sessions of this Working Group, whose mandate was solely to enable the launch of work on this project. CCE also recalls that CANU still does not have the biographies of its external associates on record, including Milan Stojović, known for his inflammatory wartime rhetoric during the 1990s.
The Working Group included the then-President of CANU, Dragan Vukčević, who today serves both as Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Montenegro and Head of the Lexicographic Centre. On the basis of these two functions alone, he earned EUR 21,024 last year, while his total income from CANU amounted to EUR 40,446, with that amount expected to increase further this year.
CCE recalls that nearly EUR 1 million has been planned for this project for the period from 1 September 2024 until the end of 2026. When the costs from the preparatory phase are added, it becomes evident that total expenditures will exceed that figure, while the public still has no insight into either the project timeline or the current stage of implementation. At the same time, CANU continuously requests and receives additional funding from various ministries, raising questions as to whether costs are being duplicated or simply poorly planned despite already being exceptionally high. Moreover, CANU does not justify these expenditures to ministries through contractually required documentation.
CCE once again calls on CANU to use the money of Montenegro’s citizens in a transparent and responsible manner and to regularly inform the public about all stages of work on the Encyclopedia of Montenegro.
Sara Čabarkapa, Active Citizenship Programme Coordinator