The European Parliament adopted a report on Montenegro in the form of a resolution urging the country to adopt the Law on Legal Recognition of Gender Identity Based on Self-Determination without delay.
As stated in the resolution, the European Parliament notes with regret that this law was not adopted in 2024, although it is one of the measures in Montenegro’s accession program to the European Union. This resolution is one of the most direct indicators that the Government of Montenegro will not be able to continue with the trend of non-fulfillment of obligations and human rights violations if it really wants to earn full membership in the European Union by the announced date of 2028.
The adoption of this law and the abolition of the practice of forced sterilization is an obligation of our state, both through the recently adopted Action Plan for Chapter 23, through the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, whose decisions are binding on Montenegro, as well as through the obligation to fulfill the recommendations of international committees such as the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
Montenegrin politicians, despite being aware of all these obligations of the state they lead on behalf of the citizens, do not have the courage to fight for human rights and democracy, but instead allow complete stagnation, so as not to offend their coalition partners. Only the most retrograde structures within the ruling majority continuously profit from this trade.
Despite the broad support of civil society organizations, international institutions such as the European Commission, the EU and European Parliament delegations, various embassies and the Council of Europe, and the support of over 100 academics, 137 regional civil society organizations, 18 members of the European Parliament and leading European human rights organizations, as well as public promises from his party that he will do everything to have the draft Law adopted, Prime Minister Spajić has been blocking the placing of the law on the agenda of the Government of Montenegro since the end of 2024, thus refusing to send it to the parliamentary procedure.
We hereby appeal to Prime Minister Spajić to finally understand that the direction he is taking does not lead to the European Union. Such concrete messages coming from the European Parliament, as well as the non-paper of the European Commission, mean that the high threshold of tolerance for failure to fulfill the obligations undertaken is being lowered. The European Union sees all the unfulfilled obligations, as well as the lack of political will to work on the democratization of Montenegro and preparation for its entry into the EU. If such negligence towards human rights, democracy and European integration continues, the chance of the citizens of Montenegro to live better will disappear. Unlike Prime Minister Spajić, we do not have the privilege of choosing in which part of the world we will live, and we cannot, and do not believe that we should, leave Montenegro when life there becomes significantly worse than it is now. Therefore, we ask our political elites to get serious and start fulfilling the obligations they have undertaken.
