EU support for Montenegro: needs addressed, but not enough impact

Met dank overgenomen van Europese Rekenkamer, gepubliceerd op dinsdag 6 september 2016.

EU support to Montenegro, as it conducts negotiations to join the European Union, has successfully supported legislative change and helped establish civil institutions, according to a new report from the European Court of Auditors. However, progress has been slow and commitment to reform by the national authorities has sometimes been weak.

The auditors looked at EU support for building up administrative capacity in Montenegro. They examined 19 projects across 3 main sectors: public administration reform, transport and environment and found that they addressed important needs. However, their effectiveness was often reduced because outputs were either not fully used or not followed up by the Montenegrin authorities. The majority of projects did not set out a clear requirement for the national authorities to follow up and capitalise on EU investment.

“Montenegro is progressing along the road to European integration”, said Hans Gustaf Wessberg, the Member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the report. “But the speed of reforms depends, among other things, on the national authorities’ commitment to ensure full effectiveness of EU support.”

In most cases, say the auditors, projects were managed and coordinated well and took into account work carried out by other donors. However, they found examples of overlap or where information-sharing with projects covering several pre-accession countries could be improved. Although the Commission monitored progress, their assessment was qualitative and covered different parts of public administration, making it difficult to measure improvement in administrative capacity over time.

The mechanisms for political dialogue worked well, yet in important areas of public administration, such as the environment or the fight against corruption, reforms are only slowly achieving results, say the auditors. Limited progress in key areas was often due to the national authorities’ weak commitment to reform. The Commission has the tools to encourage reform, but it is not always clear whether or how they will be used when the new laws and institutions supported by the EU fail to deliver results.

The auditors add that the Commission did not fully exploit decentralising the management of funds, although doing so could have been useful for strengthening administrative capacity through knowledge-transfer.

The report includes recommendations to strengthen Montenegro’s administrative capacity. In particular, the Commission should:

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monitor the relevance of support at regional level and improve coordination between national and regional activities;

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require national authorities to commit actively to using the outputs of projects and to following up results andtake into account whether these commitments have been met when deciding where to invest future assistance;