Commission and the authorities of Montenegro endorse an arrangement on counterterrorism cooperation

Today, in the margins of the ministerial meeting of Western Balkans’ Home Affairs Ministers being held in Skopje, Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos endorsed an arrangement for the implementation of the Western Balkans Joint Action Plan on Counterterrorism with the Minister of Interior of Montenegro, Mevludin Nuhodžić.

The arrangement is an expression of the determination, from both the European Commission and the authorities of Montenegro, to strengthen cooperation on countering terrorism and preventing violent extremism. It identifies concrete priority actions on countering terrorism and preventing violent extremism, which the Montenegrin authorities should take in the course of 2019 and 2020. The Arrangement covers all five objectives of the Joint Action Plan (PDF) agreed between the EU and its Western Balkans in October 2018. The priority actions being endorsed today include:

• Ensuring that police, judiciary and prosecution services have access to the necessary training, expertise and peer-to-peer advice on matters of counterterrorism; as well as adopting a new Strategy for the Prevention of Terrorism, Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing and the corresponding Action Plan, including on the efficient investigation, prosecution and bringing foreign terrorist fighters to justice.
• Improving institutional awareness on the prevention and countering of violent extremism in Montenegro, and training local practitioners (police, social workers, teachers, health workers, representative of religious communities etc.) to detect and to address violent extremist tendencies.
• Taking a number of measures against money laundering and terrorist financing, including follow-up on the Moneyval reports, the establishment of a centralised bank account register, as well as increasing skills in the Police Directorate and the Supreme State Prosecutor Office to carry out financial investigations.

The authorities of Montenegro intend to report biannually to the Commission on the state of implementation, including in terms of any difficulties they might be facing.

The arrangement also indicates envisaged Commission support in this regard, such as support through the EU’s Radicalisation Awareness Network, the EU-Council of Europe Horizontal Facility and EU Support to the Rule of Law (advisory missions).