Download Nina Brkuljan

Nina Brkuljan
EUR 301a
Written report #1
European Union evolution and expansion and its effect on my country
After the formation of European Union and its evolution and expansion, the conflict
ridden area of the Balkans was always an issue of concern for the European Union. Overall, the
change that the expansion and evolution of European Union brought to Montenegro, I would
define as positive, supportive and promising for a small rising country. As a candidate country for
the accession to the Union, Montenegro has to face many reforms in areas concerning its social,
economic and political situation.
Since 2010 when Montenegro officially get the status of the candidate country, the country
handled many changes in order to “meet the criteria” for the official membership. Those
alterations mostly concerned the rule of law and the market economy.
Political effects: EU evolution affected Montenegro in various political modifications. The
country passed through different reforms in order to meet EU’s political criteria. Montenegro had
significantly improved its legislative and institutional framework. As a result of the
improvements there is a major reinforcement in the work of parliament, the proficiency of public
administration, objectivity of the judiciary and an important strengthening of the anti-corruption
policy. Montenegro gave high priority to European integration and European parliament praised
the effort completed on finalizing Montenegro’s constitutional framework. The adaptation of new
provisions in order to meet political requirements of European Union, made Montenegro reach a
high level of cooperation with other states, as well as regional and international organizations
based on the principles of international law. Reaching a consensus on a constitutional reform
with the constructive dialogue with opposition parties, Montenegro built a solid base for its
further political growth.
Social effects: After the expansion of the European Union, my country had one main goal;
building a healthy society grounded on the values and standards of the European Union.
Admission in a visa liberation program was an important incentive for Montenegro to keep
eliminating obstacles on the way to EU and build strong grounds for new social norms that
should be implemented. One of the main problems in building this healthy society was the
outstanding level of corruption and organized crime. It is noticed that in last couple of years
Montenegro did take good steps to improve the implementation of anti-corruption and antidiscrimination policies. Since 2010 the country of Montenegro had engaged a new approach in
fighting corruption stressing on the governmental efforts along with prominent international anticorruption instruments. Recently Montenegro had couple of proactive initiatives in the area of
criminal justice. Massive measures are taken in order to detect corruption, such as “special
investigative means, procedures for reporting corruption and whistleblowers protection, and the
regime for confiscation of the proceeds of crime, to be introduced by the upcoming adoption of
the new Criminal Procedure Code, (CPC) “
Economic effects:
After several years of economic growth, as a result of many foreign investments, Montenegro
faced euro crisis, increased level of government’s indebtedness and high level of non-performing
loans.
Being a candidate country made Montenegro a part of different economic agreements. One of the
most important facts concerning Montenegro’s economic growth is its accession to PEP (Pre
accession economic program). This program should help Montenegro to reduce its current public
expenditure from 43% to 38 % by 2013, along with this cut; the country should grow its GDP
between 2% to 4 % by 2014.
The fact that Croatia is about to became a full recognized member of the European Union, made
citizens and government of Montenegro to believe that next country of the region admitted will
be Montenegro. There are many problems concerning Montenegro’s economic growth in the
direction of EU that need to be solved along the way.