OSCE promotes social re-use of confiscated assets in Montenegro

The OSCE organized an online workshop on the social re-use of confiscated criminal assets in Montenegro on 3 June 2021. The workshop brought together representatives from civil society organizations, law enforcement and the Cadastre and State Property Administration of Montenegro.

The workshop aimed to reinforce the importance of asset re-use for social purposes among government agencies and civil society and to discuss the role of civil society in the fight against organized crime and corruption.

The event was organized in the framework of an OSCE extra-budgetary initiative on asset recovery in South-Eastern Europe led by the OSCE Transnational Threats Department and the Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities.

During the workshop, national and international experts discussed Montenegro's legislative framework related to asset recovery, provisions that might allow for the social re-use of assets, and possible revisions of the framework to enable more efficient management and re-use of assets. Experts and representatives of international and regional civil society organizations shared good practices on the re-use of criminal assets for social purposes.

The event is part of a series of national workshops on social re-use organized in five South-Eastern European countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia), which are beneficiaries of the OSCE initiative on asset recovery. The donors of the cross-dimensional project are the United States Department of State, Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom.