“The Union of Municipalities of Montenegro (ZOCG) submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management its opinion on the Draft Law on the Management and Handling of Animal By-Products, in which it warned that part of the proposed provisions is contrary to the Law on State Administration, the Law on Financing Local Self-Government, and the Law on the Environment.”
“This primarily refers to the provision stipulating that, in the event the Government fails to provide the conditions for the collection, processing, and disposal of animal by-products, that obligation falls on local self-government units, which are required to ensure the incineration or burial of those products, together with the carcasses of dead animals in a livestock cemetery or burial pit, with the possibility that several local self-government units may jointly arrange the performance of these tasks by agreement.”
“The ZOCG Committee for коммунal services and the environment, which prepared the opinion, recalls that the current legal framework prescribes that when certain state administration tasks are entrusted to local self-government, the method of financing them from the state budget must be determined at the same time, which was not done in this case.”
“The proposed provision is unenforceable, in the opinion of the Committee members, also because locations for livestock cemeteries, or burial pits, as specific facilities with special hygienic, veterinary-health, and other conditions, can only be found outside the scope of the construction urban region (GUR), and this is land managed by the Government of Montenegro.”
“– Bearing in mind the limited Montenegrin market for by-products, the number of registered livestock, and the size of Montenegro, it is not even a rational solution to oblige all local self-government units to provide a location for 25 livestock cemeteries or burial pits. When deciding on the number of these locations, the previous practice of resistance from the local population in cases of zoonotic epidemics should also be taken into account, where it has been difficult to find even a single location for burying animals that have died or been euthanized – the opinion states.”
“The ZOCG Committee also raises concerns about the provision in the Draft Law which establishes the obligation for local self-government units to ensure the collection of animal carcasses from public areas for processing and destruction by organizing a sanitary service – because the Law on Municipal Services places these tasks under the jurisdiction of municipal service providers, and therefore, due to the principle of legal certainty, the same matter cannot be regulated by multiple laws, especially not in different ways.”
“The Union of Municipalities appeals for local self-governments to be included in the preparation of laws, especially those that impose obligations on them and expose them to unforeseen costs, as is expressly prescribed by law and the European Charter of Local Self-Government.”
