The subchapters of Chapter 33 are:

1. Traditional own funds
2. Funds based on value added tax (VAT)
3. Gross national income (GNI) funds

When was the chapter opened?

Chapter 33 – Financial and budgetary provisions was officially opened at the Intergovernmental Conference on 16 December 2014. Negotiations in this chapter are ongoing.

Closing benchmarks?

Montenegro is working intensively towards meeting european standards and creating of the conditions for closing of this chapter, related to:

1. Montenegro increases its administrative capacity and to this end adopts an action plan in order to sufficiently prepare and introduce procedural rules to ensure that it will be able, from accession, to correctly calculate, forecast, account for, collect, pay, control and report to the EU on own resources in line with the acquis.

What are the activities in the coming period?

The focus of activities in the coming period will be on the implementation of the Action Plan for the establishment of the EU’s own resources system in Montenegro, which was adopted in April 2019.

Institutions / organizations participating in the negotiation group?

The Negotiator for Chapter 33 as well as the Head of the Working Group are from the Ministry of Finance, while the contact person for the Working Group 33 is selected by the European Integration Office.

In addition to representatives of the Ministry of Finance, members of the Working Group are representatives of the following bodies and organizations: Customs Administration, Tax Administration, Kotor Customs, Faculty of Economics, University of Montenegro, Mediteran University, University of Donja Gorica, Central Bank of Montenegro, Monstat, European Integration Office and the Union of Free Trade Unions of Montenegro.

What are the benefits to Montenegro of this chapter?

From the first day of membership, Montenegro will pay the necessary contributions to the budget of the European Union, thus gaining the opportunity to use a certain amount of expenditures of the Union budget from the Cohesion Fund and the Structural Funds.

The bulk of the budget is devoted to the management of natural resources, in particular agriculture and rural development in the Member States. A large part of the financial resources is allocated for regional development, ie. reducing the differences between developed and less developed areas in the EU (in economic, social, environmental terms) and for infrastructure projects – construction of roads, airports, ports, bridges, improvement of telecommunications infrastructure, etc.