Centre for Civic Education (CCE) points out that, in addition to parliamentary trips costing citizens almost €800 thousand over two and a half years, they are also characterised by a wide variety of destinations – from regional and European centres to distant destinations on other continents. At the same time, in most cases, the public does not have even basic information about the reasons for and concrete effects of these trips.
By number of official trips, during the analysed period, MP of the Special Club, Jevrosima Pejović, leads with a total of 36 recorded trips, of which six were domestic and 30 international. In Montenegro, the trips referred to Tivat, Herceg Novi, Kotor and Budva, while international destinations included Sarajevo, Brussels, Bruges, Geneva, Athens, Bratislava, Budapest, Dublin, Tbilisi, Washington, Reykjavík, Doha, Rome, Vienna, Ljubljana, Tashkent, Porto, Nicosia, Chisinau, Istanbul and Berlin.
She is followed by the President of the Parliament of Montenegro, Andrija Mandić, with 29 official trips, all abroad. His destinations included Budapest, Ankara, Brussels, Belgrade, Palma de Mallorca, Rabat, Valletta, Rome, Stockholm, Riyadh, Skopje, Tel Aviv, Strasbourg, Paris, Madrid, Budapest, Ioannina, Ljubljana, Geneva, Nicosia, Monaco, New York, London and Helsinki.
Nikolla Camaj had 26 official trips, of which one was domestic and 25 international. Apart from Budva, he travelled to Strasbourg, Paris, Braga, Copenhagen, Srebrenica, Vlorë, Riga, Budapest, Athens, Montreal, Barcelona, Vatican/Rome, Pristina, Tirana, Marrakesh, Berlin and Stockholm.
Gordan Stojović had 23 official trips, all abroad, and among the destinations were Rabat, Geneva, Madrid, Rome, New York, Buenos Aires, Tbilisi, Istanbul, Matera, Arizona, Granada, Tashkent, Belgrade, Odesa, Yerevan, Lillestrøm, Málaga, Vienna and Belgrade. Such a geographical spread of travel also raises the question of priority criteria and the assessment of public interest when official trips funded by citizens are concerned.
Amer Smailović and Zdenka Popović each had 21 official trips. Smailović had one domestic trip (Budva) and 20 international ones, while Popović had four domestic trips (Tivat, Herceg Novi, Kotor and Kolašin) and 17 international ones. Smailović travelled to Baku, Madrid, Lisbon, Bratislava, Bucharest, Stavanger, Dublin, Berlin, Tashkent, Sarajevo, Vienna, Valencia, Porto, Nicosia, Chisinau, Istanbul and Washington, while Zdenka Popović visited Brussels, Davos, Athens, Srebrenica, Berlin, Reykjavík, Washington, Manila, New York, Ljubljana, Madrid, Geneva and London.
Particularly interesting are the examples of MPs Admir Adrović (Bosniak Party) and Duško Stjepović (Democrats), who are not at the very top in terms of the number of trips, but are among those whose travel significantly cost citizens. This demonstrates that the number of trips is not necessarily the best indicator of the budgetary burden. Thus, Admir Adrović had 16 official trips costing €32,793.06. He travelled to Bruges, Strasbourg, Baku, Luxembourg, Budapest, New York, Rome, Washington, Istanbul, Warsaw, Belgrade, Madrid, Yerevan, Buenos Aires and Beijing. Duško Stjepović had 20 official trips, which cost €33,334.69. Among the destinations he visited were Brussels, Trieste, Bruges, Tallinn, Rome, Sofia, Washington, Skopje, Antalya, Dayton, Copenhagen, Yerevan and Sicily.
The analysis of the documentation also points to additional methodological inconsistency, as in certain cases several destinations, or several official trips, were combined under a single travel order. Thus, for example, in the case of Jevrosima Pejović, combined orders for Budapest and Yerevan, as well as Istanbul and Berlin, were recorded, while in the case of Gordan Stojović, combined orders for Matera and Arizona, Granada and Tashkent, as well as Madrid and Geneva, were recorded. Such practice further complicates the precise monitoring of the actual number of trips and individual costs.
In the submitted documentation for official trips during 2025, in most cases the purpose of those trips was not specified. The CCE did not receive this information from the Parliament of Montenegro, thereby limiting the public’s ability to assess the justification, purposefulness and concrete effects of those trips. In other words, citizens now know where travel took place and how much it cost, but not why or what the outcome of those trips was.
The CCE also points to cases of cancelled official trips which, despite this, in many cases still generated costs for the budget. This further raises the issue of planning, control and responsible management of public funds, particularly bearing in mind that these are the resources of all citizens.
The findings confirm the need for stronger institutional control and greater public oversight of official trips by MPs, particularly when it comes to distant destinations, longer-duration trips, combined travel orders and cancelled trips that nevertheless generated costs.
The CCE believes that the Parliament of Montenegro must proactively publish data on every official trip undertaken by an MP, including the destination, duration, purpose, composition of the delegation, type and amount of costs, any cancellations and reports on the outcomes of those trips. Without this, the public does not have sufficient information to assess whether these trips contribute to the work of Parliament and the representation of Montenegro’s interests, or whether they constitute an insufficiently controlled privilege of public officials, as now appears to be the case.
Nikola Đurašević, Programme Associate