Podgorica, (MINA-BUSINESS) – Negotiation Chapter 1 – Free Movement of Goods is one of the fundamental chapters of the European Union’s single market.

Its essence is to enable Montenegro to establish a system in which goods produced or placed on the market in accordance with European rules can be freely sold and used without unnecessary administrative barriers, additional technical requirements or discrimination.

This entails aligning regulations on product technical requirements, standardization, accreditation, conformity assessment, metrology, market surveillance and consumer protection, while strengthening institutions that guarantee product safety on the market.

The objective of EU policy in this chapter is to remove technical barriers to trade among EU member states. EU rules allow products that meet common standards to circulate freely within the single market of more than 450 million consumers. In this way, they promote business competitiveness, entrepreneurship, a wider range of products and stronger consumer protection.

Montenegro opened Chapter 1 at the Intergovernmental Conference held on 30 June 2020. In recent years, numerous legislative and institutional reforms have been implemented in the fields of standardization, accreditation, metrology and market surveillance. Efforts to align national legislation with EU rules have continued in order to ensure the smooth functioning of the market and a high level of consumer protection.