Although this issue has been raised for years at the meetings of the Government's Coordination Body for the Preparation and Monitoring of Tourist Seasons, yet another season has passed and the problem remains the same – there are simply too few municipal police officers on the ground to ensure public order and provide quality services to the citizens and visitors of Montenegro. The Union of Municipalities of Montenegro has been drawing attention to this issue for years, but a solution continues to be postponed from one tourist season to the next.
The current Law on Municipal Police determines the number of municipal police officers based on the number of permanent residents in a municipality. Municipalities may employ one additional municipal police officer for every 5,000 residents, while the minimum staffing requirement is three officers per municipality.
However, this approach completely overlooks the actual needs of municipalities, particularly those with a strong tourism profile. In coastal towns, the number of tourists during the peak season far exceeds the number of permanent residents, yet municipalities continue to operate with the same legally prescribed number of municipal police officers. As a result, a small number of officers are required to perform an enormous workload – maintaining public order 24 hours a day, seven days a week, while responding to demands that far exceed their actual capacities.
Although the law formally allows municipalities, under special circumstances, to request the approval of the Ministry of Public Administration to increase the number of municipal police officers, such approval has so far been granted only on an exceptional basis.
The Union of Municipalities believes that this legal framework does not correspond to the actual needs of tourism-oriented municipalities and undermines the quality of the tourism product. Local self-government units are best placed to understand the needs of their residents and visitors and should therefore have the right to independently determine the number of municipal police officers they require. For this reason, we propose amendments to the Law on Municipal Police that would repeal the provision linking the number of municipal police officers to the number of residents. This would enable municipalities to plan and organise the service in accordance with their actual needs and local circumstances.
We also propose a more flexible approach to the recruitment of new staff, allowing municipalities to employ individuals who have not yet passed the professional examination for municipal police officers, provided that they fulfil this requirement within one year of their appointment. Such an approach would make it easier to fill vacant positions and help address the persistent shortage of qualified personnel.
In addition, the legal system no longer recognises the concept of "municipalities within the Capital City", making it necessary to remove this outdated provision from the Law as well.
If nothing changes, local self-government units will continue to face the same problem in the coming seasons – too few people to cope with too much work. This directly affects the quality of life of citizens, the orderliness of towns and cities, and the overall quality of Montenegro's tourism offering.
The Union of Municipalities of Montenegro calls for this issue to be addressed as a matter of urgency. Each new season without change brings renewed challenges for municipalities, growing dissatisfaction among citizens, and a poorer impression of Montenegro for the visitors who leave our country.
It is time to give local self-government units the right to decide on matters they know best – the needs of their own communities – which is, after all, the very essence of the decentralisation process.
