Strategic communication ofthe Euro-Atlantic integration processes

Policy brief

I Summary

The Government of Montenegro has marked the Euro-Atlantic integration as one of the foreign policy priori-ties. Therefore, in 2007 the Communication Strategy forthe Euro-Atlantic integration of Montenegro has beenadopted as a strategic document with regard to inform-ing the public on Euro-Atlantic integration. The Strat-egy’s objective was to win public support for the NATOmembership of Montenegro.

By proposing this practical policy, the Center for DemocraticTransition (CDT) wants to influence the enhancement ofcommunication by the Government of Montenegro andother interested parties regarding the issue.

The polls indicated that citizens do not have enough infor-mation based on which citizens could shape their opinionon the issue. A problem on its own is the fact that there isno open and continuous public dialogue on Euro-Atlanticintegration during which all sides involved in the dialoguewould be able to publicly present their arguments and views.

Based on the number of activities directed at moving Mon-tenegro closer to NATO, there are three ministries that lead

the way with regard to the scope of work – the Ministry ofForeign Affairs and European Integration, the Ministry ofDefense and the Ministry of the Interior. However, mediaanalysis indicates that their activities in communicatingEuro-Atlantic integration are not proportionate to their role,and the communication is not well-coordinated. OtherGovernment ministries have also not been communicatingclearly and precisely with citizens, which is also what theCDT’s collocutors have perceived regarding the topic.

In addition, a key flaw in the campaign so far is reflectedin the perception of the critics that the campaign hasbeen predominantly that of the governing coalition (andserving their interests), and not a national strategy whichis of importance for the Montenegrin society as a whole.

That is exactly the reason why it is necessary to get theopponents to the Euro-Atlantic integration more ac-tively involved in public dialogue. The Parliament ofMontenegro, as well as political parties, also dealt withthe topic insufficiently. Their role in inciting and creat-ing public dialogue on the topic has been very small.The situation is similar with the academic communityas well. The product of such a situation is inevitably arather passive media barely interested in the topic ex-cept when it concerns an important event, such as a visitof a high-ranking NATO official, etc.

E N T E R F O R

E M O C R A T I C

R A N S I T I O N

august 2013

Center for Democratic TransitionAddress: VII Omladinske bb

81 000 Podgorica, Montenegro

Phone: +382 20 207 070+382 20 207 071

Fax: +382 20 207 072

E-mail: cdtmn@t-com.me

Website: www.cdtmn.org

Author:Dgan privica

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In order to inform its citizens, the Government of Mon-tenegro has to identify communication target groups,coordinate the communication on the topic better,think of clear and correct messages and enhance coop-eration with the media, civil society, Parliament and po-litical parties. Also, it is necessary that the Governmentopens itself for dialogue with its opponents.

Just like many other countries, Montenegro is “sensi-tive” to certain security issues, from natural disasters tointernational crime and terrorism, and these are thetopics that should be used to approach a wider public.The possibility of using new technologies (Internetcampaigns) should not be neglected, which would opennew possibilities for including young people in the dis-cussion of Euro-Atlantic integration.

II What is NATO in the Montenegrin public arena?

By adopting the Declaration of Independence of the Re-public of Montenegro, The Parliament of Montenegrodefined the NATO membership as one of its foreignpolicy priorities.1 The official relations between Mon-tenegro and NATO started on 28 November 2006 whenMontenegro was invited to join the Partnership forPeace.

In October 2007, the Communication Strategy for Euro-Atlantic integration of Montenegro was adopted, as astrategic document of the Government of Montenegrodefining the goals, actors and mechanisms of informing

public on the Euro-Atlantic integration of Montenegro.The document states the following as a basic goal of theStrategy: „Increasing the level of informing the Mon-tenegrin public on the Euro-Atlantic integration, en-abling the highest possible level of support for theNATO membership of Montenegro, as well as raisingthe international public awareness of the Montenegrinaccession process.“2

The results of the Communication Strategy in the fieldof informing the Montenegrin public are not satisfac-tory. All opinion polls indicate that a large number ofcitizens are indecisive regarding the issue. In the publicdiscourse there are only a few emotional or ideologicalarguments that are being used. However, what is lack-ing is information for those citizens who opt for rationalreasons.3

The approach of the Government of Montenegro to thistopic can primarily be described as passive. In their reg-ular work, high-ranking government officials rarely talkabout Euro-Atlantic integration.4 For those who do, thecommunications most often boil down to the manytimes repeated phrase – that Euro-Atlantic integrationis the strategic priority of the country. The communica-tion on Euro-Atlantic integration is uninventive andoften times unclear, and it consists of many phrases thatthe citizens are unfamiliar with and that do not attractattention.

The three ministries in the Government of Montenegrowhich deal the most with Euro-Atlantic integration –the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,and the Ministry of the Interior communicated verypoorly with the citizens on this topic. It seems that de-spite the attempts, the Government did not succeed in

1 Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Montenegro, Article 2, Clause 4, http://www.osce.org/montenegro/19733?download=true

2 Communication Strategy for Euro-Atlantic integration of Montenegro, http://www.odbrana.gov.me/files/1193306238.doc3 An informed citizen is the person that has enough reliable information or knowledge to be able to understand the subject

matter or situation and make an appropriate judgement or decision. 4 Press clippings from the last 7 years indicate that members of the Government rarely talked about Euro-Atlantic integration,

and even when they did it was only a few members of the Government that talked about the topic.5 Since 1999, CEDEM has continually been conducting opinion polls regarding Political public opinion in Montenegro, thereby

creating a full empirical overview of the structure of political public opinion in Montenegro. In addition to investigatingstandard criteria of political public opinion (citizens’ trust in government institutions, the Government, political/public fig-ures, political parties, media), certain current domestic policy issues are often in the focus of the polls (such as citizens’views towards Montenegro’s EU and NATO membership, etc.) http://cedem.me/en/programmes/empirical-research/political-public-opinion.html

Chart 1 - Citizens’ opinion on the need for Montenegro’s membership in NATO – 2007 - 20135

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clearly coordinating the communication to go directlytowards citizens. The Government has obviously optedfor talking about NATO as less as possible from theangle of defense and security, and focuses more on eco-nomic and financial aspects of membership.6 However,the ministries of Economy, Finance and Tourism – havenot managed to offer the wider population good qualityarguments on the topic.7

Additionally, the Government often announces thatNATO standards also mean that countries would receiveassistance in case of natural disasters, as well as the im-plementation of international standards of environ-mental protection. However, this was not explained wellto Montenegrin citizens, which is why it is necessary tohave the Ministry of Sustainable Development andTourism as well as search and rescue services more ac-tively involved, on both national and local levels.

In our opinion, another characteristic of the Govern-ment’s approach towards communicating Euro-Atlanticintegration is closeness and one-sidedness. Despite theoriginal attempt to involve NGOs in the implementa-tion of the strategy, including also those NGOs thatwere not supportive of NATO membership8, a goodquality dialogue with opponents to the membershipfailed to be established. The majority of activities inwhich the Government participated were perceived bythe interested public as self-promotion, and not as ed-ucation and raising awareness. In addition, a large partof Government’s activities has been taking place in alike-minded environment. Public dialogue on the topicis not being encouraged, and that is the basis of a dem-ocratic system which could bring visible progress whenit comes to this topic. Direct dialogue with opponentshas been scarce, and the dialogue through media, whichis also a common way of communication pro et contraregarding a topic – has been missing completely.9 Itseems that the Government often opted for ignoring theopponents to NATO membership, refusing to involvein public dialogue with them.

In addition, up to this moment, the cooperation withopposition parties which favor membership in NATO islacking. This approach resulted in having a significantpart of public critics seeing this project as a one-partyproject or, more extremely, as a one-man project.

This closed approach has caused insufficiently goodquality communication with media representatives, apart of NGOs dealing with the topic, but also with theacademic community in Montenegro. Besides the lackof communication with the media, the public was notpresented with any serious and good quality analysis ofmedia coverage of these topics.

The activities of the Parliament of Montenegro regard-ing the explanation of the topic to citizens are com-pletely lacking. Such an approach contributed to thepublic perception that membership of Montenegro inNATO is not the national priority, but the priority of theGovernment of Montenegro, or even only the priorityof the governing party. We have reached the situationin which the politically most important institution inthe country is completely outside of the Euro-Atlanticintegration processes. The debate on the need for mem-bership of Montenegro in NATO has never been on theParliamentary agenda.10 There has never been a seriousdiscussion on the need for the Parliament to have aworking body which would supervise the Governmentregarding the topic.

Political parties and candidates were obviously avoidingthe topic during election campaigns, due to opportunis-tic reasons and their assessment that that was not some-thing which would mobilize the voters and bring themmore votes. The lack of communication with the voters’base lead to an absurd situation that the membershipin NATO has the support of over 60% of parliamentar-ians11 and only 30% of voters, which rightfully bringsinto question the legitimacy of the decision on mem-bership if brought by the Parliament of Montenegro inthese circumstances. Some political parties avoid an-

6 Press clippings from the last 7 years indicate that members of the Government opted for talking about NATO membership in aneconomic context, and that discussions about security context mainly boiled down to sporadic statements by defense ministers.

7 An attempt to explain economic benefits is the text written by the Finance Minister, Igor Luksic, Economic Benefits for Montenegrofrom NATO membership, which was published in the magazine Security in October 2008. http://www.mif.gov.me/files/1225721978.pdf.However, even in this article, ecomonic benefits were explained very generally and with few concrete arguments.

8 The first Memorandum on cooperation between the Coordination Team for implementation of the Communication Strategy forEuro-Atlantic integration and NGOs was signed on 8 February 2008. The Memorandum was based on the principles of trans-parency, cooperation, independence and accurate and objective informing of citizens. One of the co-signatories to the Memo-randum was Nansen Dialogue Center, one of the first organization in Montenegro which questioned the decision of Montenegroto become a NATO member.

9 The press clippings in the past 7 years indicated lack of arguments exchange between supporters and oponents to NATO mem-bership through media.

10 The Parliament of Montenegro, its 23rd and 24th convocation (2006-2009 and 2009-2012), discussed on several ocassions thelaws and amendments to the law on military and defense. In addition, decisions were reviewed on deployment of Montenegrinsoldiers to peace-keeping missions and reports on participation of the Montenegrin army in those missions. As part of these dis-cussions, there were occassional discussions on the NATO and Euro-Atlantic integrations of Montenegro. However, there werenever discussions on the need for Montenegro to become a NATO member or over alternatives to the concept.

11 The Parliament of Montenegro has 81 representatives. The governing coalition “European Montenegro” has won 39 seats andthrough its election program it openly advocated membership of Montenegro in NATO (http://www.naprijedcrnagoro.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Naprijed-Crna-Goro.pdf). Full-fledged membership of Montenegro in NATO is also the programprinciple of the Bosniak Party, which is one of the constituents of the executive government and has 3 seats in the Parliament(http://www.bscg.me/ciljevi/), and of the opposition’s Positive Montenegro, which won 7 seats in the elections(http://www.pozitivnacrnagora.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Positive-Montenegro-Programme-in-English.pdf). Its supp-port for Montenegro becoming a NATO member has been expressed on several ocassions by representatives of the CroatianCitizen’s Initiative, which has one representative, and by the Albanian political parties which currently have 2 representativesin the Parliament. This means that 52 out of 81 representatives in the Parliament explicitely support NATO membership. Inaddition, the Movement for Change, which is a part of the coalition Democratic Front and has 5 representatives in the Par-liament, indirectly eludes that NATO offers a better perspective for Montenegro, while its highest officials have often publiclyexpressed their support for the integration. (http://www.promjene.org/images/documents/Program_PZP.pdf, strana 71). St

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nouncing to their voters their clear stance regardingmembership of Montenegro in NATO, placing the bur-den of this decision on a possible referendum. The po-litical parties that support, but also those that opposethe membership, have never offered citizens serious po-litical platforms which would explain important factsregarding the Euro-Atlantic integration.

III Is Montenegro preparedfor receiving the invitation?

Judging by announcements of domestic and interna-tional officials, Montenegro is close to receiving the in-vitation to join NATO. Although at this moment it isdifficult to give an exact assessment when that mightoccur, the indications are that that could happen at thenext NATO summit where expansion is to be discussed.

Regardless of the decision during the next NATO sum-mit, the fact is that the Government of Montenegroworks on fulfilling political and technical requirementsfor NATO membership, but does not explain to the cit-izens whether there are any benefits from that for thecountry and society. If that happens, not only militaryand police would enter the NATO alliance, but thecountry of Montenegro as a whole. Therefore, all seg-ments of society should be prepared for the member-ship.

Opinion polls indicate that there are a huge number ofindecisive citizens, and based on direct communicationwhich the CDT had with thousands of citizens12, we canconclude that those who do have an opinion base it ontwo arguments alone. The majority of those supportingthe membership believe that the membership in NATOis a stop on the way to the EU, while its opponents basetheir resistance on the negative experience from the1999 NATO intervention. The large number of indeci-sive citizens indicates that these arguments are not sat-isfactory to a certain number of rational voters who arewaiting to be offered information and rational argu-ments.

The dilemma referendum vs. decision in the Parliamentis not relevant at the moment, because in both cases itis necessary to have politically informed and rationalvoters who would be capable to choose the policy or theprogram which leads to achieving social objectives inthe most rational way. This cannot be accomplishedwithout a thorough campaign of informing the votersand the promotion of public dialogue and debates over

various security concepts. In addition, Montenegro hasnot received the invitation yet, and the issue of the man-ner of making the decision can be in the focus only ifthe invitation is received.

IV Two strategic solutions

In order to receive the invitation for NATO member-ship, Montenegro has to fulfill several requirements,one of which being large support of citizens for mem-bership. The Governments of all countries whichwanted to join NATO had to undoubtedly show thattheir citizens wanted to become a part of the Alliance.

The level of support in various countries differed, andthat largely depended on the political history, but alsothe current political situation. Some countries run toNATO from their bad past and ambitious neighbors andthey had huge public support for that, while other coun-tries had to invest a lot of time and effort to inform theircitizens and win their support.

The situation in Montenegro significantly differs fromthose in all other countries waiting for their member-ship invitation. Although we share a historical heritage,recent war past and public sentiments toward the non-alignment project with Slovenia and Croatia, our situa-tion is indeed specific. Montenegro is the first countrywhose government advocates NATO membership, al-though we were, less than 15 years ago, in war withNATO, although at the time we were formally a part ofa larger country - Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.Therefore, communicating this topic to citizens re-quires taking into consideration a large number of fac-tors and special subtlety while deciding over furthersteps in that direction.

1. Through a campaign of numbers, without informed citizens

One of the options for the Governments is to strategi-cally wait for the decision-making moment regardingmembership invitation and not conduct any major ac-tivities in the meantime. Upon receiving the invitation,the Government may opt for a short, but intensive cam-paign, resembling election campaigns, and in a shortperiod homogenize the electoral body. That way, in ashort period of time and with expressed decisiveness,increase of support could be expected.

This approach would include running the campaignfrom a closed circle consisting of a few institutions andindividuals who were leading the process so far. Stayingin that closed circle would mean better coordination ofall participants in the process and their better disciplineduring the implementation of the campaign. Similarsystems function almost based on the principle of a“military” delegation of responsibilities, so an efficientresult can be expected.

On the other hand, this approach would certainly leadto lower quality information for citizens, because a sig-nificant number of participants (media, opposition par-

412 Since the Info Center on Euro-Atlantic Integration has been opened (November 2012), about 700 citizens took part in various

events organized by the Center. Parallel to that, 2500 final year high-school students in several Montenegrin municipalitiesparticipated in the CDT’s workshops about NATO, of which a written evaluation has been made.

ties supporting membership, NGOs, academic commu-nity) would be left outside the process.

In addition, in case this approach is implemented, citi-zens would not make their choice based on argumentsfor and against membership in NATO, but on party biasand loyalty. That would increase the existing problemof having the Euro-Atlantic integration not to be per-ceived as the national priority, but as a project of gov-erning parties. In the long-term, this creates a newproblem and a new political division, so a large numberof citizens could deny the legitimacy of the decision onNATO membership.

Besides, the flaw of support achieved this way is that itis not genuine and is therefore short-lived. Any oscilla-tions on the national or international scene might leadto the collapse of this kind of support.

The Government of Montenegro changes the structureand the people dealing with the coordination of theEuro-Atlantic integration and communication activi-ties, which leads to the conclusion that the Governmentitself is not fully satisfied with the results achieved sofar. In addition, based on the statements of high-rank-ing government officials13, it can be concluded that theyopt for a more open and more inclusive approach.Choosing the first option would not be aligned with theproclaimed openness and transparency.

2. Through communication and information to understanding and support

The other approach would include a continuous, strate-gically consistent and open communication, based onan honest approach and sharing of accurate and objec-tive information. What the participants in the processshould set as the goal is a safe and integrated state, andnot NATO membership on its own.

Introducing participants who do not belong to the ex-ecutive power system would increase legitimacy of thedecision made later on, and it would also offer a signifi-cantly larger pool of information which would not comefrom only one center. This approach would contributeto the transparency and democratic nature of the entireprocess.

This approach should lead to the majority of citizenshaving enough information on the advantages and dis-advantages of NATO membership and the thorough ex-planation thereof, but also all other alternative securityconcepts.14 This also means being considerate towardsthe opponents, giving up on extreme positions andleading a dialogue in order to find the most rational andthe best solution for Montenegro.

A negative side of this approach is that actions whichinclude participants from all parts of society are muchmore difficult to coordinate, and it is much more diffi-cult to send a unified and clear message. The CDT’sopinion, based on detailed analysis of both positive andnegative aspects of both options, is that openness and

transparency, and well-informed citizens are the mostimportant part of this process. Therefore we recom-mend that future activities should be implementedbased on this model.

In the end, the decision supported by well-informed cit-izens has to be respected, because its legitimacy is un-doubted.

V Recommendations

After becoming aware of these problems in the processof communicating the Euro-Atlantic integration to cit-izens, the CDT, with the support of the UK Embassy,started the project aimed at gathering as many opinionsas possible on the topic, and, based on that, at helpingthe Government of Montenegro enhance the commu-nication. The CDT discussed this topic with over 50state and political parties’ officials, media, academicand NGO representatives, and there was also an onlineconsultation process conducted with interested citi-zens. None of the CDT’s collocutors from any of the sec-tors was fully satisfied with the CommunicationStrategy or the way it was implemented. In addition, acomparative analysis was made between the Montene-grin Communication Strategy, and the strategies basedon which communication and informing of citizens wasconducted in Slovenia, Slovakia and Hungary. The ob-jectives of these strategies, target groups and commu-nication channels, were carefully analyzed with specialemphasis on dealing with the media and the role ofother sectors in society. The best examples were used asthe starting basis for working on recommendations forenhancement of the communication between the Gov-ernment of Montenegro and its citizens. A team con-sisting of NGO, media and the Governmentrepresentatives analyzed the comments and recommen-dations obtained through various meetings, as well asfrom the comparative analysis of the strategies, and pro-posed the best ways to enhance communication withMontenegrin citizens. Based on everything mentionedabove, the recommendations for the Government ofMontenegro have been prepared and they are containedin this document.

1. Identifying target groups

In order to approach strategic communication in anyarea, it is necessary to determine who it will be commu-nicated to, i.e. what are the target groups. Therefore itis necessary that the Government starts with regularand comprehensive quantitative and qualitative re-search in order to understand the view of citizens re-garding Euro-Atlantic integration.

Opinion polls conducted so far were mainly focused onpercentages of opponents and supporters, sometimesrevealing some demographic indicators as well. How-ever, what is necessary is to periodically conduct in-depth opinion polls, focused on answering the questionwhy such a large number of citizens is indecisive regard-

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13 The statement by the Defense Minister Milica Pejanović-Đurišić on the Forum 2BS, June 2013, http://www.vijesti.me/vijesti/pejanovic-durisic-izbori-skrajnuli-nato-clanak-132513

14 In the public arena in Montenegro, there is often talk about neutrality as an alternative to NATO membership, but withoutany serious elaborations on what that would precisely mean.

ing this issue. It is important to detect key prejudice ofcitizens and thereby define the questions in opinionpolls. Based on these opinion polls, the Governmentshould obtain information over what it is that citizensbase their choice on, why is somebody for and some-body against it, what are the truths and misconceptionsamong citizens.

This should be the first step in formulating a bettercommunication strategy with citizens which will helpdefine messages, channels and mechanisms of commu-nication.

2. Enhancement of internal coordination

By introducing the position of the National Coordina-tor for NATO, the Government has sent the messagethat it wants to enhance the coordination between in-stitutions dealing with this topic. The first step in thearea should be to define a new, better way of coordinat-ing, primarily, three key ministries – Ministry of De-fense, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and EuropeanIntegration and the Ministry of the Interior – but alsoall other state institutions which have any role in theprocess of Euro-Atlantic integration. Better coordina-tion would mean not only successful coordination oftask implementation and meeting NATO membershiprequirements, but also a coordinated communicationof all government activities in the area with the Mon-tenegrin citizens. State institutions have to start ex-plaining to their citizens what is it that they are doingin the area of Euro-Atlantic integration and why it isthat important.

Responsibilities from the areas of rule of law, police re-form, border management, development of the protec-tion and rescue system, which are understandable tocitizens and important for their daily life, and which areaccording to the Annual National Programs (ANP) theresponsibilities of the Ministry of Interior, are barelycommunicated to the citizens. Also, the role of thisMinistry in Euro-Atlantic integration is not sufficientlyrecognized. In addition, the attempt to explain NATOmembership by future economic benefits for Montene-gro should be left for economy experts – heads of econ-omy, finance, agriculture and tourism sectors – becausegeneral politicians in the previous period have not suc-ceeded in explaining this economic argument.

3. Clear and accurate messages

The Government of Montenegro must internally unifythe messages sent to citizens regarding the topic, inorder to avoid the situation that the Government re-ceives different messages, sometimes even different in-formation, from different addresses. The messages haveto be accurate and designed together with experts. TheGovernment should identify and explain key reasons forMontenegro’s joining NATO, but also to provide an an-swer to the most frequent criticism and arguments bythe opponents to NATO membership.

The Government has to stop ignoring criticism and op-posing views, avoiding difficult questions and topics,such as the 1999 bombardment, and idealizing Euro-Atlantic integration as the solution for all problems. Itis of key importance to inform citizens on the topic re-alistically and honestly, to accept certain flaws in everyconcept, and to offer reasonable arguments based onwhich the best of the offered options can be selected.

Communication has to be innovative; new channels ofcommunication have to be opened, the public shouldbe addressed through social media, but also the visualidentity of government campaigns has to be improved.

4. Establishing cooperation with the non-governmental sector

To a certain degree, other participants in the process –the media, NGOs, academic community, and especiallythe Parliament of Montenegro and political parties, arealso responsible for informing citizens on Euro-At-lantic integration. However, the Government of Mon-tenegro, as the leader of the project has moreresponsibility – it is responsible for initiating, coordi-nating and encouraging other social sectors to dealwith the topic.

4.1. Cooperation with the media

It is necessary for the Government to significantly im-prove cooperation with the media in the process ofcommunicating the Euro-Atlantic integration, be-cause the media is the key channel of communicationwith citizens, and it has an irreplaceable role in pass-ing accurate and clear information to citizens. TheCDT believes that, instead of communicating throughpublic announcements and sporadic events, a constantmechanism of communication should be designed to-gether with media editors and through an informalbody consisting of representatives of the Governmentand the media which would in regular communicationexchange information and remove dilemmas. In addi-tion, our recommendation is that the Governmentshould do an analysis of the media coverage of topicsrelating to the Euro-Atlantic integration in order todetermine what the media has been reporting aboutalready, and what has remained uncovered or insuffi-ciently covered. That way, through a coordinated andstrategic approach, citizens would be offered informa-tion on all topics regarding the Euro-Atlantic integra-tion of Montenegro. Obstacles in communication withthe media so far have been difficulties with finding ex-pert collocutors and sources of information relating tothe Euro-Atlantic integration. The Governmentshould, therefore, share with the media the informa-tion on contact persons in state institutions and whattheir field of expertise is, so that journalists wouldknow who to contact for information on concrete mat-ters. In addition, we believe that the Governmentshould appoint a person who would deal with commu-nication and the development of cooperation with the

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media. The CDT recommends that the Governmentshould organize additional training and study trips forjournalists covering the topic of the Euro-Atlantic in-tegration.

4.2. Cooperation with NGOs and academic community

It is necessary to enhance the coordination with NGOsand involve more NGOs in cooperation in the field ofthe Euro-Atlantic integration. The Government has sofar cooperated with the NGOs working on the promo-tion of NATO or on informing citizens on the Euro-At-lantic integration, but missed to include the NGOsdealing with, for examples, the issues regarding the ruleof law and environment protection, which are includedin the MAP. When allocating money for projects, itshould be made sure that fair and equal conditions areensured for activities of opponents to the Euro-Atlanticintegration as well. Since this is tax-payers’ money, andsince among tax-payers there is equal number of thosewho oppose NATO membership, the Government isobliged to allocate the funds also for those NGOs whichpromote alternative concepts, or question the decisionof Montenegro to become a member of the Alliance. Ofcourse, when allocating the funds, it should be ensuredthat ideas and projects are of good quality, and thatthose who submit the projects have good public imageand influence. In the previous period, the activity of ac-ademic community was almost completely lackingwhen it comes to analyzing the problem and opening adialogue on the topic of Euro-Atlantic integration. It isnecessary to identify academic experts in this area andincite social accountability of scientific communitywhich has the obligation to deal with such importantsocial issues.

4.3. Cooperation with the Parliament

The role of Parliament in the Euro-Atlantic integrationof Montenegro has to be strengthened. It is necessaryfor the question of integration into NATO to come to theParliament’s agenda – either through discussions andproviding opinion on strategies, plans and reports of theGovernment regarding the issue, or through a separatedocument which the Government would propose for theParliament’s agenda. Since the Parliament so far has hadno initiative in the area, we believe that the obligationof the Government of Montenegro, i.e. the parliamen-tary majority supporting the Government, is to initiate,through regular mechanisms, opening of new topics inthe Parliament. The CDT believes that it is necessary tostart a discussion on the plenum over this strategic pri-ority of Montenegro, since the public is either divided ordisinterested, and since it is a role of the plenum to in-form the citizens on the most important strategies andpolicies. Besides, opening of the topic on a public sessionof the Security and Defense Board would definitely con-tribute to increasing citizens’ awareness. In addition, itwould be useful to initiate communication between theParliament and the Government regarding enhance-ment of parliamentary supervision over the process (e.g.forming of a new board which would supervise theprocess of Euro-Atlantic integration).

4.4. Communication with political parties

It is of crucial importance to more actively involve incommunication over Euro-Atlantic integration boththose political parties that advocate NATO membership,and those that oppose it. That is the basic democraticfunction of political parties – taking part in shaping po-litical will of citizens and mediating between citizensand decision-makers. Potential membership of Mon-tenegro in the NATO Alliance is a very important deci-sion which will affect all future generations, andtherefore it is of crucial importance for the majority ofcitizens to have sufficient accurate and objective infor-mation and be able to make a well-informed choice re-garding the issue. Therefore both supporters andopponents to integration are responsible for citizens andthey have to help citizens reach this complicated deci-sion. Political parties which support NATO membershipthrough their programs need to make an effort to explainto citizens the advantages of this choice. Those who ob-ject joining NATO need to offer an alternative foreignpolicy and security concept and explain the advantagesthereof. What the Government can and has to do in thearea is to initiate communication with political parties.That requires opening up for cooperation and coordina-tion with those political parties supporting membershipin NATO, but also opening of public dialogue and com-munication with political parties opposing the member-ship.

VI Conclusion

Montenegro needs continuous and open communica-tion between all relevant factors in the process. It is nec-essary to involve all ministries in creating a clear andopen campaign whose task is to provide accurate andobjective information.

The leaders in the process should set as their goal asecure and integrated country, and not NATO mem-bership on its own. Also, in addition to state institu-tions, it is necessary for the Parliament ofMontenegro, all parliamentary political parties, NGOsdealing with NATO (regardless of whether they are foror against it, or are only promoting public dialogue) -to have more active involvement in opening public di-alogues on the topic. The academic community alsoneeds to be more strongly involved, including univer-sity professors dealing not only with security issuesbut also all those issue which, in some way, are relatedto Euro-Atlantic integration – human rights, interna-tional law, etc.

The final goal for everybody should be better citizenawareness and the important possibility for all of them,based on good quality, accurate and objective informa-tion, to independently reach a decision and take astance – what would be the best for Montenegro. Onlyactive involvement of citizens in public dialogue andclear benefits from it for citizens and society as a wholecan contribute to society’s democratization.

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SOURCES:

• Communication Strategy for Euro-Atlantic inte-gration of Montenegro, Government of Montene-gro, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of ForeignAffairs and Public Relations Bureau, 2007, asfound on 1 August 2013 onhttp://www.odbrana.gov.me/rubrike/strateska-dokumenta-/90377/79612.html

• Memorandum on Cooperation Between the Co-ordination Team for Implementation of theCommunication Strategy on Euro-Atlantic inte-gration and NGOs, 2008, as found on 1 August2013 on http://www.nato-montenegro.me/index.php?option=com_docman&Itemid=58

• Opinion polls, Center for Democracy andHuman Rights – CEDEM, as found on 1 August2013 on http://cedem.me/en/programmes/em-pirical-research/political-public-opinion.html

• The Parliament of Montenegro websitehttp://skupstina.me/index.php/me/, as of 30July 2013.

• The Bosniak Party websitehttp://www.bscg.me/ciljevi/, as of 30 July 2013.

• The Positive Montenegro websitehttp://www.pozitivnacrnagora.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Program-Pozitivne-Crne-Gore.pdf, as of 30 July 2013.

• The Movement for Change websitehttp://www.promjene.org/images/documents/Program_PZP.pdf, as of 30 July 2013.

• The Coalition European Montenegro websitehttp://www.naprijedcrnagoro.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Naprijed-Crna-Goro.pdf, as of 30 July 2013.

• Presentation "Raising public awareness onNATO: Raising public awareness on NA TO:How to devise and implement a communicationstrategy - The Hungarian experience"

• Communication Strategy of the Republic of Slovakia• Communication Strategy on Euro-Atlantic inte-

gration of Slovenia• Presentation "Slovenia & NATO – Public infor-

mation program", Government PR and Media of-fice, 2006

MEETINGS WITH:

• Radovan Bogojević, Ministry of Foreign Affairsand European Integrations

• Mehmedin Tahirović, Ministry of Defense• Periša Kastratović, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

and European Integrations• Rajka Raičević, daily newspapers Dan• Draško Đuranović, Portal Analitika• Neđeljko Rudović, ND Vijesti• Aleksandar Dedović, NGO Alfa Center• Marijana Bojanić, NGO NOMEN• Darko Ivanović, NGO Citizens’ Alliance• Aida Ramusović, communication expert • Bojan Baća, CDT Research Team coordinator• Marija Vučinović, Croatian Citizens’ Initiative • Dritan Abazović, Positive Montenegro • Zdravko Šoć, Liberal Party• Esad Šainović, Liberal Party• Jovan Rabrenović, Liberal Party• NGO Institute Alternativa• NGO Monitoring Center CEMI• NGO Center for Democracy and Human Rights

CEDEM• We use this opportunity to thank all citizens who

sent us their suggestions via online forums. Wewould also like to extend our gratitude to all rep-resentatives of institutions, political parties,media, NGOs and diplomatic missions who, inthe past few months, indicated flaws in the com-munication strategy and offered their proposalsfor its improvement.

8Views expressed in this publication do not necessarily correspond to those of the British Embassy