Montenegro’s experience: municipal participation in EU negotiations

Montenegro has held candidate status for EU membership since 2010 and has been engaged in accession negotiations with the EU since 2012. Today, the country has opened negotiations on all 33 negotiating chapters, with 6 fully closed, and it places great hopes on becoming the 28th EU member state by 2030.

Naturally, the accession process is not an easy one for the country. As with other candidate countries, numerous challenges arise on the path to accession, particularly in ensuring the rule of law, implementing judicial reform, safeguarding media freedom, and combating corruption.

We spoke about the role of local self-government in Montenegro’s EU negotiation process with Vanja Starovlah, project manager at the Network of Associations of Local Authorities of South-East Europe (NALAS) and former Deputy Secretary General of the Union of Municipalities of Montenegro.

The conversation took place within the course “EU Integration: Impact and Opportunities for Communities” by the Сities4Сities initiative and the Swedish-Ukrainian Polaris Programme “Support for Multilevel Governance in Ukraine.”

Marta Suprun: Why do you think it is important to involve local self-government in the EU negotiation process?

Vanja Starovlah: Local self-government is the government’s main partner in the negotiation process, because it is responsible for the practical implementation of approximately 70% of EU legislation. And this often means that during the negotiation process, when the candidate country implements EU legislation into national law, it can affect the distribution of powers between different levels of government. And participation in negotiation groups essentially gives local self-government time to study what changes await them.

In the EU accession process, it is important that the processes take place at all levels of government in parallel – what is implemented at the central level must immediately be implemented at the regional and local levels as well.

In addition, local self-government has an understanding of the current situation and the level of readiness for EU standards in all areas at the local level, as it is directly responsible for providing services to citizens. And the state simply needs to have this first-hand information and to truly understand the state of affairs and the readiness to implement European legislation.

For example, when we opened Chapter 27 in 2016, which concerns the environment – and I would say this is the most problematic chapter of all, because it includes many requirements that need a lot of funding – the government of Montenegro had to take on the obligation to increase the percentage of waste that is recycled. At that time, we recycled approximately 6–7%, and the government planned to commit to raising this figure to 50% by 2030. Local self-government clearly understood that this was an unrealistic commitment. Now, in 2025, we have increased this figure to only 10%. 

There is also significant expert potential at the local level that must be utilised in the negotiation process. And when we engage the best experts on a given issue from local self-government in the negotiation group, they are actually the most active participants. The same can be said for representatives of civil society, who also take part in the negotiation process.

For some reason, we are often prone to forget that local self-government is an important level of public governance, just like the central or regional levels. Unlike universities or civil society organisations, local self-government has the authority to adopt normative acts and implement policy. And this should not be forgotten.

It is precisely through policy implementation on the ground that abstract European legislation turns into tangible benefits for residents. Local self-government makes European policy visible at the local level through projects, better infrastructure, and improved services.

Was the role of local self-government in the European integration process immediately apparent, especially to the government? And how did you reach mutual understanding?

Unfortunately, the understanding of the importance of local self-government in this process did not come immediately. The negotiations began in 2012, and local self-government joined the process only in 2018–2019. So, it took six or seven years to realise that this was really necessary. And, of course, it all depends on the personality of the minister responsible for European integration – how sensitive he or she is to the needs of the local level. Because, frankly speaking, the European integration process in all candidate countries in our region is extremely centralised. 

Yes, we participate in the negotiation groups for those chapters that we believe are particularly critical for local self-government, but we need to defend our position very firmly in dialogue with the central government and provide clear arguments as to why expanding our participation is beneficial for the country.

At first, we joined the work on establishing a system for managing European funds – and that was a big success for us. Then we took on the role of communicating the country’s EU accession process, and we proved that we could do this well, that we are a strong partner to rely on.

Accession negotiations are a rather grand term – in reality, there is often nothing to negotiate about in this process – there are simply EU requirements that must be adopted and implemented. What can actually be negotiated are the deadlines for fulfilling certain obligations. 

How does the participation of local self-government in the negotiation process work in practice?

At the beginning, we analysed all 33 chapters of EU legislation that are subject to negotiations and joined five groups that we considered most important for local self-government – public procurement, agriculture and rural development, regional policy, the environment, social policy and employment.  Later, by actively working in these groups, we created conditions to join other groups as well. Today, there are eleven. In addition to the initial five, we have also joined the chapters concerning taxation, competition, fisheries, entrepreneurship and industrial policy, the judiciary, and consumer protection. 

All of these chapters concern different policies, so Montenegro created a separate ministry responsible for the European integration process, and this ministry was our main partner in the negotiation process. For each chapter, we conducted an analysis of the impact of EU legislation on the local level, as well as how much time, administrative and financial resources would be required to practically implement EU policies.

What were the biggest challenges in this process?

In Montenegro, for example, the government has changed three times since 2020. And with each change of government, the negotiation groups were completely restructured. Each time, there was a risk of us being excluded from the negotiation groups, and once this even happened – we were not involved in the negotiations for over a year.

Usually, groups of 15–16 negotiators were formed for each chapter, which, apart from the government, also included us, as local self-government, and civil society, universities, chambers of commerce – generally various representatives of society. But our government once decided to reduce the negotiation groups to 7–8 representatives, and for a short time, we were left out of the process. Fortunately, this did not last long, but we learned the lesson that political changes also bring major changes to the negotiation process.

As you mentioned earlier, in the process of preparing for EU membership, local self-government usually negotiates with its own government. Are there any mechanisms for participation in this process also at the European level?

Throughout this time, we have actively collaborated with the Committee of the Regions. In 2012, when we received candidate status, a Joint Consultative Committee with Montenegro was established under the Committee of the Regions. This is a crucial tool in the context of EU enlargement, ensuring representation of local and regional levels in the process, monitoring, and providing consultations on aspects of the negotiation process relevant to the local level. The discussions we had within this committee helped us better understand the impact of European legislation on the local level, conduct quality analysis, and determine which negotiating chapters we, as local self-government, should prioritise.

It is also important to note that the committee facilitates two-way information exchange, allowing us to convey certain messages to European institutions.

Montenegro is almost unique among candidate countries in that it delegates representatives to the Joint Consultative Committee not through the government but directly through the association of local self-government, enabling the body to truly reflect the position of local self-government in the negotiation process.

Instead of Conclusions: What Lessons for Ukraine?

• It is necessary to establish a Joint Consultative Committee with Ukraine under the Committee of the Regions as soon as possible and ensure a transparent process for forming its composition on the Ukrainian side, involving associations of local self-government. To achieve this, a relevant decision must be adopted by the EU-Ukraine Association Council.
• The participation of local self-government through associations in negotiating groups is important for the state as a whole, as it helps to realistically and qualitatively assess Ukraine’s commitments to the EU and prevent excessive regulation or penalties in case of unrealistic commitments.

Registration is open for the Cities4Cities course “EU Integration: Impact and Opportunities for Communities”. This course will provide confidence on this topic for everyone participating in European-level events and help conduct negotiations with international partners more effectively while clearly formulating development priorities for the coming years.

The course is supported by Sweden’s flagship programme for Ukraine Polaris “Supporting Multilevel Governance in Ukraine”.

Cities4Cities | United4Ukraine are partner initiatives that joined forces in September 2022. Cities4Cities was founded by the city of Sindelfingen (Germany) under the patronage of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe. United4Ukraine was initiated by SALAR International and the city of Lviv, with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). Since 2024, Cities4Cities | United4Ukraine has been part of Sweden’s flagship programme for Ukraine Polaris “Supporting Multilevel Governance in Ukraine”.