Council of Europe experts visited Montenegro on 22-23 January to discuss the implementation of the framework related to discrimination, and in specific the responses of the state to hate speech and hate crime cases. The analysis will help relevant human rights institutions, as well as Police and Judiciary, to better understand what measures need to be designed to fully protect rights of citizens and ensure the respect of European standards in this field, following up on the Council of Europe’s European Commission against Racism and Intolerance report on the country from 2017 and the 2019 EC report on Montenegro.

The experts, together with COE staff from the anti-discrimination department, met with state representatives as well as with NGOs and the local EU delegation, to gather evidence to complete their analysis. The recommendations are set to focus on legal issues, data collection, sanctioning policy, capacity building of institutions. They will also help fine tune the plan of activities of the Horizontal Facility II action on promotion of diversity and equality in Montenegro, running until mid-2022, co-funded by the EU and the CoE and implemented by the anti-discrimination department of the Council of Europe, No hate speech and co-operation unit.