Podgorica, (MINA) – The Prime Minister’s Questions should not be viewed only by the number of sessions held and questions asked, but also by the quality of the topics on which the Prime Minister is invited to publicly account, the Center for Civic Education (CGO) assessed.

This NGO stated that, in addition to politically attractive topics, the PM’s Questions must be a space for discussing topics that directly affect the quality of life of citizens, primarily healthcare, youth, crisis situations, social cohesion, dealing with the past and protecting democratic values.

Nikola Obradovic, program associate at CGO, said that the NGO’s analysis, covering questions addressed to Prime Minister Milojko Spajic between December 28, 2023 and July 6 this year, shows that the topics of economy, Europe Now 2 program, European integration, public finances, security, infrastructure, regional development, identity issues and relations with neighbors dominated.

According to Obradovic, these are legitimate subjects of parliamentary overview, but the Prime Minister’s Questions should be used much more extensively to address the issues that often remain outside the daily political agenda, despite being crucial for citizens and the democratization and Europeanization of Montenegro.

“For example, young people were the focus of only a few questions, mainly in the context of the Europe Now 2 program and the benefits of EU membership, while issues such as employment, housing, brain drain, their political participation and institutional support were almost absent”, said Obradovic.

He added that the situation is similar with healthcare, which was addressed only sporadically, although the availability of healthcare services, waiting lists, the position of medical staff, the condition of hospitals and the sustainability of the healthcare system should be among the priority topics of the PM’s Questions, with regular questioning of the competent minister.

When it comes to democratic values, he said that the issues of historical revisionism, affirmation of the Chetnik movement, glorification of war criminals and denial of international court rulings were open through the questions.

“Unfortunately, the Prime Minister never gave clear answers to these questions, either because some PMQs were not held, or because the answers provided avoided the essence”, Obradovic added.

The NGO noted that only 14 of the 21 scheduled PM’s Questions were held, and that institute was particularly neglected during the first year of Spajic’s mandate, while certain improvements were observed this year.