Brief: Human Rights In Montenegro - Social And Economic Rights

MANS

30 March 2004

About MANS

MANS is a non-governmental organization that supports the development of a healthy, secure and active civil society in Montenegro. We do this by using a participatory approach - promoting NGO networks and coalitions, active citizenship, and effective advocacy; building partnerships with government and public institutions, researching, analyzing and sharing information; and providing capacity-building services.

Introduction

It is general knowledge that economic and social rights are preconditions for exercising civil and political rights. If one cannot survive with its income, it is much harder for them to resist pressures on him regarding ways of achieving civil and political rights. Such a person is focused on generation of income to fulfill basic needs and lacks motivation to reach rational political and civil decision on the basis of appropriate information. This is even more severe if those that provide him with income use different forms of pressures on his decision-making.

Social Dialogue – Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper

In order to ensure that basic social and economic rights are fulfilled in these conditions, Montenegro desperately needs social dialog among all stakeholders. A unique opportunity to reach social consensus was development of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper - PRSP. Although Government of Montenegro has opened large consultation process, which enabled dialogue of all stakeholders, inclusion of comments was weak. In addition, opposition political parties refused to participate and therefore neglected their responsibility to represent the people who voted for them, which prevented this document to achieve political consensus. Lack of inclusion of some of the most important citizens’ and NGOs’ comments disabled the document to be declared as a result of social consensus. Therefore, we cannot say that PRSP is the product of Montenegrin society but political document of its Government.

Regardless of which sources of data are used it is obvious who are the poor – beside marginalized groups recognized in the PRSP - Roma, IDPs and refugees, citizens themselves, but also governmental and non-governmental institutions clearly recognized people with disabilities, youth and single mothers as most vulnerable groups. All those groups are in unfavorable position when generating income and other their basic social, economic, but also civil and political rights are not respected. Also, Government ignored suggestions given by the poorest on key causes of poverty, such as corruption and crime that were also recognized by majority of international stakeholders. As a result PRSP has not included policies for overcoming the biggest development obstacles in Montenegrin society.

Moreover, PRSP document is not recognizing priorities in implementation of projects related to marginalized categories (PRSP defines over 400 projects). Without participatory identification of priorities and development of clear action plan, monitoring implementation of policies defined by PRSP will not be possible. Another obstacle to monitoring and evaluation of implementation of the PRSP is not enough accuracy of data, especially on macroeconomic indicators.

Labor Rights

Number of employed people is still much higher than production needs, but in the biggest state owned companies workers were made redundant. Therefore, artificial maintenance of the level of employment rate resulted in demands of workers for reimbursement even for the period they were not engaged in production processes. In February, over 30 companies were on strike and workers mostly demanded salaries for the period from several months to several years, which means that they were just asking for implementation of the new Labor Law. This Law was recognized as one of the reform laws, but it cannot be implemented because if that happens most of companies will be closed. Companies are not prepared for that especially because of insolvency that is caused by a range of issues including high level of taxes. On the other hand, Government has to maintain the level of deficit agreed with International Monetary Fund and it cannot decrease level of taxation to a large extent. Even reduction of 20% is opening the question of achieving an agreement with IMF, but that is still heavy burden for development of business in Montenegro.

Privatization, Restitution and FDIs

Privatization process is essential for all transitional economies and it is of crucial importance for further development. Since privatization processes can often be severe in societies that lie on the edge of a social crisis, it is very important that Montenegrin privatization processes are properly implemented, which will lead to a decrease of unemployment and number of poor. Recently, majority of socio-political groups have raised questions on transparency and quality of privatization processes declaring that adequate ambient for privatization of the biggest companies doesn’t exist.

Governmental institutions have estimated Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) for 2004 in the amount of 120 millions €. According to the Plan for Privatization in 2004, majority of those funds are to be obtained from privatization of the largest companies (Aluminum Plant (KAP), National Power Supply Company (EPCG), Iron Works of Niksic), but it is crucial that those funds are used for creation of new job opportunities not for covering budget deficit that has been done so far.

In addition, privatization processes are followed by poor implementation of the Law on Restitution. This is a crucial issue because majority of companies are in areas where property rights are not defined. Last year, Government adopted the Law on restitution that was not implemented at all. Recently Government significantly amended the Law, without consulting those groups that are most affected. These groups express high disagreement toward proposed solutions for restitution of their property. This could be a serious obstacle in implementation of the Law, which will contribute to insecurity of investments in Montenegro. High risk of conducting business in Montenegro is a result of non-existence of adequate legislation (Law on Anticorruption, Law on Conflict of Interests) and lack of implementation of existing laws (e.g. Restitution Law, Labor Law) and insolvency of Montenegrin economy.

Conclusion

It is obvious that it is politically hard for the Government to face the reality of Montenegro and provide reliable information about progress in transitional processes. Social crisis that is just around the corner could be prevented only through implementation of policies based on reliable data that correspond to real situation. It requires both political and social consensus on and participation in identification of priorities for decreasing poverty among the poorest and development of action plan as well as in monitoring of all development policies. Special attention should be given to hearing voices of the poorest categories whose basic rights are not respected. We would like to believe that within Montenegrin Government and opposition political parties there is still a good faith and a strong will for achieving healthy, secure and sustainable Montenegrin society able to reach international standards and become member of EU family.