The fifth meeting of the Committee for Stabilization and Association was held, chaired by the Head of the Unit for Montenegro at the Directorate General for Enlargement and Neighbouring Policy Mr. Dirk Lange

Podgorica, 9 December 2015; the fifth meeting of the Committee for Stabilization and Association, between the European Union and Montenegro was held, and one of its topics regarded the activities conducted by the Public Procurement Administration during the current year…

The meeting was opened from the Montenegrin side by the State Secretary for European Integration and the Chief Negotiator Mr. Aleksandar Andrija Pejović, while on behalf of the European Commission the opening speech was held by the Head of the Unit for Montenegro at the Directorate General for Enlargement and Neighbouring Policy Mr. Dirk Lange. The meeting was an opportunity for discussion on issues of fulfillment of the political and economic criteria for accession, as well as other key aspects of implementation of the Stabilization and Association Agreement.

The Public Procurement Administration was represented by its Director, PhD Mersad Mujević who talked about the activities conducted by the Administration in the course of 2015, as well as the future challenges in the field of public procurement policy in Montenegro, while a special emphasis was put on the activities on fulfilling the closing benchmarks, which are numerous and all of them are either commenced or planned, defined by the time limits and submitted to the Government for their information.

These are, primarily, as follows:

  • Adoption of the new Law on PPPs,
  • Adoption of the new Public Procurement Law (PPL), with a time limit for its approval by the Government being, according to the plans, I quarter of 2017, and it is going to be aligned with a new set of Directives of 2014 regulating this area,
  • Establishment of electronic public procurement system, with estimated value of 1,65 million euros, through the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) 2014,
  • Preparation of the Strategy for Development of the Public Procurement System for the period 2016-2020.

In continuation of his statement, he referred also to the synopsis submitted by the EC and emphasized in introductory speech by the EU representatives, which regarded the situation in the area of ​​concessions, administrative capacities, fight against corruption, the role of monitoring, the role of inspection for public procurement at the Inspection Administration, a price as a criterion, the performance evaluation and risk management, the GPA, project activities and other issues.

The Chief Negotiator with the EU, Mr. Aleksandar Andrija Pejovic stated that today’s gathering was the crown of all meetings held during this year, and that there is only one remaining meeting and that is of the Parliamentary Committee in Strasbourg, which shall round up the activities in this segment of cooperation with the European Union.

In the part dealing with ECONOMIC CRITERIA, FINANCE AND STATISTICS, as well as INTERNAL MARKET AND COMPETITION, there were discussions by the following speakers: Mr. Nikola Vukićević, Ministry of Finance; Ms. Nina Blečić, Ministry of Finance; Ms. Tijana Stanković, the General Secretariat of the Government; Ms. Ana Vlahović, Central Bank of Montenegro; Ms. Stana Bešović, State Audit Institution; Mr. Mensud Grbović, Ministry of health and Ms. Rada Marković, Administration for Inspection Affairs.

 

Agenda
Contribution for the participation of the Montenegrin delegation at the fifth meeting of the Stabilisation and Association Committee

 

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