Full Commitment of All Institutions Required for Montenegro’s Accession to the SEPA System


10/07/2023

“Our goal is to apply for Montenegro’s accession to the Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) by the end-2024,” said the CBCG Governor, Radoje Žugić, at today’s meeting with AAER-FWC Consortium representatives - Hartmut Seibel and Irena Dajković.

At the CBCG initiative and with the European Commission’s financial support, the Consortium was engaged to prepare an analysis of the Montenegrin regulations’ compliance with SEPA requirements. SEPA is a single euro payment area where payments are made under the same basic conditions. After preparing the analysis, domestic institutions will be presented with which laws and segments need to be amended so that Montenegro can apply for accession to SEPA. Along with a significant reduction in the costs of cross-border payments of Montenegro with EU countries, joining SEPA would represent one of the clearest signals of our country’s concrete approach to the EU.


Achieving this goal will require the full engagement of all relevant institutions in the country, and their quick action, given the highly dynamic changes in applicable EU regulations, was the message of today’s meeting. The Governor announced that the regulation governing payment transactions fully complies with EU directives, while its full convergence with SEPA conditions is expected in the short term.


During their stay in Montenegro, AAER-FWC consortium experts will meet with representatives of the Government, international institutions, and private and NGO sectors.