European Union and Council of Europe support Montenegrin media legislative and policy reforms

Media legislative and policy reforms are entering the final stage of intensive public consultations, with the expert support provided under the joint European Union and Council of Europe action “Freedom of expression and freedom of the media in Montenegro” (JUFREX).

The process of reconstruction of media legal framework, along the lines of European standards and recommendations from JUFREX document Media Sector Inquiry, begun in 2018. After series of inclusive consultations among governmental representatives, civil society and media – the Council of Europe submitted final expert reviews of the Draft Law on Media, Draft Law on Public Broadcasting Service and Draft Law on Audio Visual Media Services to the Government of Montenegro in December 2022.

In parallel, the Government of Montenegro set up in 2021 the consultative working group which has been tasked to develop the first ever national Media Strategy (2023-2027). It was envisaged as the comprehensive policy framework for the enhanced co-operation between the public sector, media and civil society, to address a broad range of issues such as safety of journalists, media professionalism and self-regulation, hate speech, online harassment, disinformation, media literacy and digital transformation of the media sector. The European Union and Council of Europe strongly supported the policy development process through the present action, and final expert comments and recommendations for the improvement of the Draft Strategy have been submitted to the Government of Montenegro in December 2022.

The revised and improved media legislation and policy would serve as the framework for the future co-operation between the European Union and Council of Europe with the Government of Montenegro and stakeholders from media and civil society foreseen for the next phase of the Programme, that will begin in January 2023.

The action “Freedom of expression and freedom of the media in Montenegro – JUFREX 2” is implemented under the Joint European Union and the Council of Europe Programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022".