A total of €212,769.87 was spent on official travel by MPs of the 28th Parliament of Montenegro during the first six months of 2026, while more than €1 million has been spent for this purpose since the current Parliament was constituted in late July 2023, according to one of the key findings of a new analysis by the Centre for Civic Education (CCE), which builds on its previous research findings on this issue.
The new CCE analysis shows that 888 official trips were recorded in less than three years, costing the citizens of Montenegro a total of €1,010,904.70. At the same time, information on the concrete results of these trips is not systematically available to the public, making it impossible to assess their actual contribution to the work of Parliament and the representation of Montenegro’s interests.
According to data obtained through free access to information requests, 181 official trips were recorded from 1 January to 30 June 2026 – 164 abroad and 17 within Montenegro. Adding the 707 trips previously analysed, which cost €798,134.83 by the end of 2025, brings the total since the beginning of the current parliamentary term to 888 trips and €1,010,904.70 in expenditure.
These figures confirm that official travel represents a significant budget item for the Parliament of Montenegro, while also pointing to a marked concentration of both expenditure and number of trips among a relatively small number of MPs, with their actual impact remaining unknown.
Pejović with the highest expenditure, Camaj with the most trips
During the first six months of 2026, the highest individual expenditure was recorded for Jevrosima Pejović, an MP from the Special Parliamentary Group – €19,876.96 for 11 trips, one to Budva and ten abroad – Washington, Vienna, Tbilisi, Budapest, Istanbul, Copenhagen, Strasbourg, Rome and Yerevan.
She is followed by Nikola Camaj of the Albanian Forum, whose 16 trips cost €12,765.80. Camaj also had the highest number of recorded official trips among all MPs – 15 abroad (Strasbourg, Pristina, Budapest, Zagreb, Paris, Vienna, Skopje, Kristiansand, Tallinn, the Vatican and Istanbul) and one within Montenegro (Budva).
Eight official trips by Nađa Laković, an MP from the Europe Now Movement (PES), cost €11,598.37 (Budva, Strasbourg, Paris, Monaco and Budapest), while five trips by the president of the Civic Movement URA, Dritan Abazović, cost €11,345.10 (Ljubljana, Washington, Grosseto, Berlin and New York).
Among the MPs with the highest expenditure were also Gordan Stojović of PES, with €10,077.43 spent on six trips (Madeira, Zagreb, Trieste, Istanbul, Strasbourg and Odesa), and Edina Dešić of the Bosniak Party (BS), whose five trips cost €9,484.70 (Strasbourg, Istanbul, New York and Shandong).
Among the MPs with the highest overall travel expenditure, Dritan Abazović (URA) had the highest average cost – €2,269.02 per trip. He was followed by Edina Dešić (BS) with €1,896.94, Jevrosima Pejović with €1,807.00, Gordan Stojović (PES) with €1,679.57 and Nađa Laković (PES) with €1,449.80 per trip. Nikola Camaj (AF), despite having the highest number of trips, had the lowest average cost within this group – €797.86 per trip.
From zero to almost €20,000 in travel costs in six months
At the other end of the list, among MPs who travelled, Branislav Nenezić of the European Alliance (ES) had one recorded trip to Budva with no reported expenditure, while only €28.80 was spent on two trips by PES MP Darko Dragović, also to Budva.
President of the Parliament Andrija Mandić had two trips recorded by Parliament during the first six months of the year – to Monaco and Ljubljana – at a cost of €358.26.
One trip by Nela Savković Vukčević of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) to Nicosia cost €368, while Kenana Strujić-Harbić (BS) travelled to Sarajevo at a cost of €395.72. Trips to Nicosia by Abaz Dizdarević (DPS) and Miloš Pižurica (PES) cost €512 each.
PES ranks first in total expenditure
By parliamentary group, the highest amount in the first half of 2026 was spent on travel by PES MPs – €38,628.46 for 31 trips, accounting for slightly more than 18% of the total official travel expenditure of all MPs during the analysed period. Of this amount, 30% relates to Nađa Laković’s travel and slightly more than a quarter to Gordan Stojović’s.
The BS follows with 21 trips costing €28,116.07, more than one third of which relates to Edina Dešić’s travel. A total of €22,987.52 was spent on 27 trips by New Serb Democracy (NSD) MPs, with around 30% relating to Dejan Đurović’s travel. DPS MPs made 20 trips at a cost of €22,597.91, of which around 30% relates to Ivan Vuković’s travel. The Special Parliamentary Group recorded 14 trips costing €21,467.12, with as much as 92.6% relating to Jevrosima Pejović’s travel.
A total of €20,986.69 was spent on 11 trips by URA MPs, of which 54% relates to Dritan Abazović’s travel. MPs from the Democrats made 18 trips at a cost of €20,832.34, with one third relating to Duško Stijepović’s travel.
The Albanian Forum recorded 20 trips costing €14,947.49, with more than 85% of that amount relating to Nikola Camaj’s travel. The European Alliance spent €9,999 on 11 trips, more than two thirds of which relates to Nikola Zirojević’s travel. Three trips by MPs from the SNP–CIVIS group cost €4,142.89, of which 85% relates to Maja Vučelić’s travel. Two trips by Adrijan Vuksanović of the DUA and HGI Parliamentary Group cost €3,254.99, while one trip by Vladislav Bojović of the DNP cost €1,690.34, representing the total official travel expenditure of these two parliamentary groups during the analysed period.
What was achieved through these trips?
CCE considers that more than €212,000 spent on official travel in just six months, and more than €1 million spent during the current parliamentary term, require a significantly higher level of transparency regarding the purpose and results of these trips. The problem is that the public has no systematic and easily accessible way to determine why the trips were undertaken, what was concretely achieved and what benefit Montenegro derived from them.
As we previously pointed out, official travel is a legitimate and necessary part of parliamentary work, particularly in the areas of international cooperation, European integration and parliamentary diplomacy. However, every official trip must have a clearly defined purpose, a demonstrated public interest and publicly available information on the results achieved.
CCE once again calls on the Parliament of Montenegro to publish information on official travel regularly and proactively, in a format that provides easy access to the destination, duration and purpose of each trip, its participants, as well as individual costs of transport, accommodation, per diems and other expenses. Alongside financial data, brief reports on the results of trips, meetings held and activities relevant to the work of Parliament should also be published.
Citizens have the right to know not only how much MPs’ official travel has cost, but also what has concretely been achieved with more than €1 million of public money. Transparency in public spending must not depend on individual free access to information requests, but should be a standard practice of an institution that represents all citizens of Montenegro.
Nikola Đurašević, Programme Associate