A joint meeting of the Foreign, Interior and Justice Ministers of Italy and Montenegro will be held today in Rome, at Villa Madama.
The meeting will be attended, for Italy, not only by Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani but also by the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, and the Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio. Also present will be the Commander of the Guardia di Finanza (the Italian Financial Police), Andrea De Gennaro, the President of the Italian National Anti-Corruption Authority (ANAC), Giovanni Busia, and Italy’s National Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor, Giovanni Melillo.
Ministers Tajani, Piantedosi and Nordio will also have separate bilateral meetings with their Montenegrin counterparts.
As underlined by Tajani, “our aim is to reaffirm Italy’s full support for the European perspective of Montenegro by focusing on concrete actions and operational tools to assist Podgorica in its efforts to move closer to the European Union. We wish, in fact, to further strengthen our bilateral cooperation by fostering synergies and collaborations in key areas for the EU accession process such as the rule of law and justice”.
“We will continue to assist Montenegro in its journey towards joining the European Union”, said Minister of the Interior Piantedosi, adding that “as far as my Ministry is concerned, we are fully prepared to collaborate in order to further improve the excellent cooperation existing between our countries’ Police Forces and to expand its scope with new initiatives”.
Minister Nordio explained that “Italy ensures its cooperation with Montenegro in the shared objective of fighting transnational organised crime. We are ready to share with Podgorica our experience and our legislation, which is at the forefront in the fight against mafias and corruption. We are ready to draft, together with Minister Milović, a bilateral Memorandum on justice: our cooperation will focus on digitisation, as well as on the fight against organised crime, which is becoming increasingly involved in cybercrime”.
The Rome meeting lays the foundations for a significant improvement in relations between Italy and Montenegro, in line with the strategic partnership that unites the two countries and is based on their membership in the Atlantic Alliance.
