On December 15 last year in Paris, during the French Presidency of the European Union (EU), Montenegro formally made act of candidacy to the Union. Four months later, on April 23, the European Commission (EC) was requested by EU Member States to prepare an avis on the application — the basic document on which the Council will rest to decide whether to grant Montenegro the official status of EU candidate country and eventually to open membership negotiations with it, thus setting in motion the irreversible process which could lead, at term, the Balkan State to join the EU. Among the sources of information used by the Commission in the preparation of its opinion are the answers to the questionnaire delivered, on July 22 last in Podgorica, by Mr. Olli Rehn, European Commissioner for Enlargement; the so-called questionnaire is a 368-page document of 2,178 questions, elaborated as a working tool to facilitate the dialogue conducted by the Commission with Montenegro to assess the country’s readiness to fulfil EU membership obligations.

Today, this Wednesday December 9, 2009, on the second day of his two-day official visit to Brussels, Belgium, the Prime Minister of Montenegro, H.E. Mr. Milo Đukanović, was received by outgoing European Commissioner Rehn [1], to formally handing over to him Montenegro’s answers to the EC’s questionnaire — a series of 12 printed books of about 13,500 pages, with a 4,433-page core consisting of the “strictly speaking” answers to the questions, and the remain of annexes on the country’s legislation, laws, international agreements, strategies, programs and action plans (265 documents in total); the establishment of this document involved the work of about 1,000 civil servants of the Government and National Institutions, as well as local and foreign experts and translators.

After a brief welcoming meeting in private between Prime Minister Đukanović and Commissioner Rehn, they held a roundtable discussion that included for the Montenegrin delegation, in addition to the Prime Minister, T.Exc. the Vice-Prime Minister and Finance Minister Dr. Igor Lukšić, the Foreign Minister, Mr. Milan Roćen, the Minister for European Integration, Prof. Dr. Gordana Djurović, and Mrs. Slavica Milačić, Ambassador and Head of Mission of Montenegro to the European Communities. Among the themes that dominated the general discussion, sides notably evoked the reform process in Montenegro, especially on aspects of the effective implementation of laws and the consolidation of the rule of law; the system of measures and activities for combating corruption and organised crime; the avis-drafting process, about which Commissioner Rehn assured the Prime Minister it will be rendered “in a fair and balanced spirit”; and the next stages of Montenegro’s EU accession course. They also exchanged a number of views on the future functioning of the EU, the new college of Commissioners, and various pressing issues facing Montenegro and the Balkan region in general. The roundtable was followed by a concluding joint press-point at the VIP corner of the Berlaymont.
Additionally, inside the time interval of the meeting schedule, a short symbolic handing over ceremony was organised to the attention of the Montenegrin medias present, in the presence of the entire Montenegrin delegation.

Following is the audio record in English of the concluding joint press-point given by outgoing Enlargement Commissioner Rehn and Prime Minister Đukanović, in Brussels, Belgium, December 9 04:43pm:

As part of the event schedule in Brussels of the high-ranking Montenegrin delegation, yesterday, on Tuesday December 8, Prime Minister Đukanović attended at the Bibliothèque Solvay, in the Brussels’ Parc Léopold, the annual high-level European Policy Summit entitled “A New Era on the Balkans” — the Xth in Friends of Europe’s series on the Balkans, on the occasion of which the Montenegrin Head of Government delivered a speech during the morning session on “Making 2010-2020 the Decade of the Balkans”. The one-day Summit gathered together, to discuss pressing issues in the arenas of Balkans’ EU accession and economic realities, numerous Senior Officials from Balkan State governments, the Commission’s DG Enlargement, the European Parliament, as well as business and NGO leaders.

As for Vice-Prime Minister Lukšić and Foreign Minister Roćen, today, on Wednesday December 9, they attended at the Hotel Sofitel Brussels Europe the invitation-only conference hosted by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, H.E. Mr. Carl Bildt, and European Commissioner Rehn, entitled “The Western Balkans: Overcoming the economic crisis — from regional co-operation to EU membership”. The one-day Conference — which gathered together some 200 high-level participants including Ministers and Senior Officials from Western Balkans’ countries, as well as EU Member States, Turkey, USA, Russia, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Moldova — was focused on the financial and economic situation in South-East Europe, and the importance of regional co-operation in overcoming the economic crisis.