EU Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World: Montenegro
1. Overview of the human rights and democracy situation: Please refer to the upcoming 2019 Enlargement Package Country Report for Montenegro.
2. EU action - key focus areas / bilateral political engagement: The EU continues to closely monitor the respect for human rights within the framework of the EU accession negotiations, in particular under Chapter 23 - Judiciary and fundamental rights. There is a regular policy dialogue on both technical and political levels, drawing from monitoring of the implementation of the action plan for Chapter 23, regular peer reviews, EU-funded projects, and engagement with international organisations and civil society. In this regard, key focus areas included freedom of expression, gender-based violence and the rights of persons belonging to minorities.
3. EU financial engagement: In 2018, under the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA), three projects (worth ca. EUR 2.5 million) continued to provide broad and concrete 11 support in the area of human rights. The projects aim to provide sustainable solutions for the internally displaced Roma population, promotion and protection of the human rights of Roma, Egyptians and other vulnerable groups, gender equality, support for the Ombudsman’s office, the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights and the Ministry of Justice (prison administration) on the application of human rights standards.
In the framework of the IPA Sector Operational Programme for Education Employment and Social Policies (SOPEES), a EUR 3-million grant scheme was designed to implement quality social service for the most vulnerable groups. This includes a EUR 300,000 grant to strengthen the role of Roma mediators in the sector of inclusive education and EUR 300,000 awareness-campaign against discrimination of ethnic minorities. These actions will be implemented in 2019. In addition, within the IPA Civil Society Facility, EUR 280,000 was allocated in 2018 for a project targeting peer-to-peer school violence. Six projects under the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) were implemented during 2018, totalling EUR 760,000. The topics range from promoting the rights of people with disabilities, social housing, right to access information, LGBTI rights, to building trust in the integrity of the electoral process, and education about human rights of both student and the general public.
In addition, three more projects under the EIDHR were contracted in May 2018, with a total value of EUR 380,000. The projects cover the areas of prevention and protection from sexual violence, consumer protection rights of persons with disabilities, trade unionisation of Roma workers and political and civic activism of Roma. Through EU financial assistance a shelter for women victims of domestic violence in Podgorica was able to remain operational, providing prevention and protection from sexual violence. The shelter has been helping victims of sexual violence for years, often pro bono. The EU-funded grant aims to increase the capacity of the shelter to carry out its core activities, as well as public advocacy and awareness raising. The latter activity focuses on real testimonies of sexual violence victims to address attitudes in society and encourage more victims to come forward.
Likewise, an organisation of transgender persons (SPECTRA) was established by local NGOs and provided funding for its operation thanks to EU-funded grants. SPECTRA is becoming more visible in society where it combats discrimination of transgender persons, which is even more widespread and open than for other members of the LGBTI community. As part of the EU-Council of Europe Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey, funding has been provided to the NGO sector to assess police and prosecutorial investigations of ill-treatment cases. A notable achievement of the project was the exposure of a lack of effective investigation in the 2015 protest cases. In 2017, the Constitutional Court established for the first time a violation of the constitutional prohibition of torture due to ineffective investigation.
4. Multilateral context: Montenegro continued its dialogue and cooperation with international human rights organisations and monitoring bodies, in particular those of the 12 United Nations and of the Council of Europe. In June 2018 the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) report on Montenegro (Third Cycle) was adopted by the UN Human Rights Council. Concluding Observations of the Committee of the Rights of the Child for Montenegro were adopted in June 2018, while Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Elimination of the Racial Discrimination for Montenegro were adopted in September 2018. In October 2018, the Council of Europe Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO) published its first evaluation report on Montenegro.
You can download the entire Report here: