Minister of Culture and Media, Tamara Vujovi\u0107, noted that no country has ever had the need to harmonize this type of legislation and the latest European directives with its legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"This is yet another proof that we are a leading country, and therefore pioneers in this harmonisation. When we adopted a set of media laws, which enabled us to obtain a positive IBAR, among other things, we thought that we had completed a great journey and that we were at peace for a while, that is, that we could enjoy what we had done. However, this European path and European integration implies constant work and adaptation to what has already been adopted in Europe and which must in some way be transposed or implemented into domestic legislation,\" Vujovi\u0107 stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vujovi\u0107 noted that Montenegro is in an advanced stage of alignment with the acquis, in the areas of digital services, markets and media freedom, but that a new challenge is the implementation of the Digital Services Act (DSA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Although the Digital Services Act in the European Union is a directly applicable regulation, Montenegro must in parallel develop the necessary institutional framework in accordance with European practice, including determining who will be the competent authority for the implementation of the DSA, the so-called Digital Services Coordinator, and work will soon begin on establishing a system of supervision and cooperation with relevant European institutions. The preparation of a special implementing act, namely the Law on the Implementation of the Digital Services Act, is in the final stage, the adoption of which is expected during the second quarter of 2026. We expect it to be adopted by the government practically by the end of June. The implementing law precisely regulates the competences of the authorities, supervision mechanisms, as well as the protection of user rights in the digital space. A legislative framework for the implementation of the Digital Markets Act is also being developed in parallel, however, this interdepartmental working group is coordinated by the Ministry of Economic Development,\" the minister stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A multi-sector working group, which was formed in June 2025 and has held 15 meetings so far, is working on these solutions. She explained how the harmonization process is going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"First, it is the amendment or elimination of norms from domestic legislation, which are incompatible with this new European directive, and second, the harmonization of regulations through the delimitation of competences, strengthening procedural guarantees and eliminating normative overlaps in relation to the Digital Service Act as a directly applicable regulation of the European Union. In Brussels, we are recognized as one of the leading candidate countries in the field of these policies, which is somewhat a confirmation that we are on the right track and that we have correctly determined the steps by which we will transfer these complex directives into Montenegrin legislation. Therefore, this process is not a goal in itself for us to adopt a directive or an implementing law, but to first strengthen interdepartmental cooperation, which such complex directives require, also to strengthen our institutions and our capacities and to prepare in this sense for integration into the single digital market,\" Vujovi\u0107 stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Minister pointed out the importance of regulating the digital public sphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Regulating the digital public sphere is an extremely complex and horizontal task, therefore, it implies the participation, I would say, of the entire society. The Digital Service Act, the Digital Market Act and the European Media Freedom Act establish a regulatory framework based on clear obligations of those providing services, on the responsibility of large platforms and on strengthening supervision over the application of rules, and that is part of our job. How we regulate these technical and legal issues has a direct impact on the way in which citizens will access information tomorrow, how they will form opinions and generally participate and make decisions,\" said Vujovi\u0107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to her, this European approach contributes to setting standards that are applied or are beginning to be applied outside the European Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Regulatory bodies, civil society and the professional community are key actors in this process that should define the digital public space in the long term. Our goal is for it to remain secure, to remain sufficiently open, but also to strengthen user trust. And that is why Montenegro has opted for this broad, inclusive approach through a multi-sector working group,\" explained Vujovi\u0107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jadranka Vojvodi\u0107 from the Agency for Audiovisual Media Services pointed out that there are multiple scenarios for the application of DSA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"The first scenario is to completely simulate the European Union model - everything that exists in the European Union that we pass laws and copy everything, including what the European Union and the European Commission do. The second scenario implied the adoption of one or more laws that copy, simulate the European Union model, but certain competencies are then transferred from Montenegro to the European Union, primarily in the area of \u200b\u200bsupervision and regulation of very large online platforms. Of course, this is a model that, among other things, implies an agreement. No one has made such an agreement so far. We had to see if there was any willingness to conclude that agreement, because in this case, our desire is not enough, but also the desire and willingness of the European Commission, which, if it were to develop such a model, would not develop it only for Montenegro. It would also be necessary to develop it for other candidate countries,\" said Vojvodi\u0107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said that the third scenario implied the adoption of a framework that would only regulate, or prescribe, norms related to the jurisdiction of national authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"And that would actually remain, ensuring only the regulation of those services and providers that would be under the jurisdiction of Montenegro, large platforms would be outside that system and that regulatory gap would be very evident and therefore citizens' expectations could not be resolved. The fourth scenario is activation after accession and actually implies the adoption of an implementation law that would recognize the institutions that will work on the implementation of the DSA. We have come to the conclusion that the only possible, the only justified and rational is this fourth solution, which is the adoption of an implementation law that would, I hope, be prepared by the end of June, adopted by the government and adopted in the Parliament by the end of the year. This would mean that it is completely clear who the coordinator for digital services will be, what is the set of key competent authorities in different areas that would be responsible for processing cases of illegal content, whether it is hate speech or intellectual property violations,\" Vojvodi\u0107 said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professor Dr. Hrvoje Lisi\u010dar from the Faculty of Law in Zagreb noted how demanding the issue of regulating services provided via the internet is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"When you consider what is being done online today, you can imagine how demanding this area is. How many actors must be involved in it. When you consider the situation that you have huge corporations that are immensely financially powerful, both in terms of lobbying and in terms of everything else, it is very questionable how much a country like Croatia can independently influence some decisions of large companies, the same applies to Montenegro. And that is precisely why the DSA system was designed where certain competencies are taken over by the European Commission and it actually fights these large platforms. We are stronger together, that is now being shown in practice, through the application of the DSA. When you look at all the proceedings that have been initiated against certain corporations and the penalties that have been imposed, it is much more effective to fight that way,\" said Lisi\u010dar.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Ministry of Culture and Media today organized a panel \"Alignment of Montenegro with the European Framework for Media and Digital Space\" with the aim of exchanging experiences and initiating a discussion on key challenges and opportunities in the process of alignment with European standards in the field of media and digital space.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":620865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[188,150],"naslovna":[],"class_list":["post-957038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kultura","tag-crna-gora","tag-tamara-vujovic"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":957039,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957038\/revisions\/957039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957038"},{"taxonomy":"naslovna","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gradski.me\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naslovna?post=957038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}