OSCE Mission to Montenegro supports strengthening of parliamentary oversight

With the aim to improve parliamentary oversight, the OSCE Mission to Montenegro organized a workshop for Members of Parliament on 5 November and for Parliamentary service staff on 6 and 7 November in Podgorica.

The workshop provided a forum for discussion on the evolution of the usual procedures of parliamentary oversight, based on best international practice. Advanced concepts of parliamentary oversight, such as financial oversight and the oversight of the negotiation process with the European Union, were presented.

Lia Magnaguagno, Democratization Programme Manager, said that parliamentarians face a lot of challenges and responsibilities. “You are confronted by a rapidly changing environment in which information is more widely available, more instantaneous and more difficult to verify than ever before. The workshop is a good opportunity to examine core principles and explore new approaches to enable you to be more effective as MPs,” she said, adding that MPs and the parliamentary service staff are the engine at the very heart of any democratic system.

During the workshop, Fotios Fitsilis, expert in new trends in parliamentary oversight, introduced innovative methods for digital advancing of parliamentary procedures such as Linked Open Data and crowdsourcing.

The Mission remains, through tailored workshops, committed to improving the capacity of the Montenegrin Parliament.