Podgorica, (MINA) – Joining the EU is a process that involves gradual and complex changes in the institutional order, legal system, economic and social structures, said Deputy Prime Minister for Foreign and European Affairs Filip Ivanovic, adding that each closed chapter is part of a deeper transformation that the country is undergoing.

Ivanovic said this in the Parliament, responding to Europe Now Movement MP Vasilije Carapic, who asked whether the EU membership would change the way of life of Montenegrin citizens.

According to Ivanovic, EU membership is not a magical transformation that changes all aspects of Montenegrin society overnight.

“It is a continuous process that implies a series of deep, gradual and complex changes in the institutional order, legal system, economic and social structures, but also in the way individuals thinks about themselves and their role in a wider context”, stated Ivanovic.

He said that, in this sense, each closed negotiation chapter represents a part of a deeper transformation that Montenegro is undergoing and should not be viewed as just a formality.

“However, even more significant for citizens, who have witnessed various criminal and corrupt activities, abuses of office and public resources for decades, is that the system is now introducing mechanisms that make such practices less and less feasible, and in the future practically impossible”, Ivanovic said.

He said that “in many segments we are already living the EU practices, without waiting for the formal moment of membership”.

Democratic Party of Socialists MP Aleksandra Vukovic Kuc asked Ivanovic to comment on the announcements by certain Montenegrin municipal leaders that they would not organize the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the restoration of the independence, given the importance of the jubilee for modern national identity and the process of EU integration.

Ivanovic said that this matter does not fall within his portfolio, nor the competences of the Government of which he is a member.

Vukovic Kuc, responding to Ivanovic’s comment about the DPS agreement with United Russia, said that that party had built relations with Russia when the entire international community did.

“You knew that what Spajic was saying was a lie. You focused on ruining his image, with that spin you wanted to definitively distance him from the pro-Montenegro and European opposition”, stated Vukovic Kuc.

She added that Ivanovic, by going to Hungary in the middle of the election campaign in that country, contributed to the possibility that Montenegro may not close all negotiation chapters by the end of this year.

Head of the DPS parliamentary group Andrija Nikolic stated that the party had not denies the existence of the agreement with United Russia, adding that it was signed because at that moment it was in the state’s interest.

“That was the golden age of Montenegrin foreign policy, because Montenegro then had good relations with the United States, Russia, the EU, and China”, said Nikolic.