Strasbourg, 17 June 2025
Member of the European Parliament and member of the AFET committee, Željana Zovko, spoke today at the plenary session in Strasbourg about the 2023 and 2024 Commission reports on Montenegro.
Zovko highlighted that European values encompass the respect of the rule of law, good neighbourhood relations as well as, in the case of Montenegro, the protection of the cultural, material and immaterial heritage of the Croatian minority.
She emphasized that in order to advance towards EU accession, Montenegro must also ensure equal representation of national minorities in media, judiciary, law enforcement and public institutions. It must also intensify efforts for the non-discriminatory use of minority languages in education, in dedicated media space in the state and in local outlets.
Moreover, Zovko underlined that the rhetoric of Montenegrin politicians must align with that of Brussels circles and work towards reconciliation and solutions to past disputes.
“As I stressed in my amendments to the report on Montenegro, the country must intensify its efforts in punishing war crimes and must work on clarifying the fate of missing persons. These are essential conditions to become an EU member state adhering to core European values”.