Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Milan Rocen met today in London with Foreign Office Minister for Europe David Lidington. They discussed issues related to the European integration process in the context of the forthcoming December meeting of the European Council where the European Commission recommendation for opening of accession negotiations with Montenegro is going to be on the agenda.

Minister Lidington congratulated Montenegro on hitherto results and praised its achievements in the reform process. He informed Minister Rocen with the position of his government on the issue and noted that, next week, the UK will support the European Commission recommendation to open accession negotiations with Montenegro. Minister Lidington underlined the UK support to the Enlargement policy as well as the individual approach to assessing efforts of every Western Balkan country individually on their way towards the EU membership.

Minister Rocen thanked the UK government for continuous support to Montenegro's and the rest of Western Balkan's European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations and congratulated Minister Lidington for taking over the chairmanship over the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. He underlined that the priorities of the British presidency fully correspond with Montenegro's European agenda.

The two Ministers also discussed concrete modalities of cooperation in the following phases of European integration process, as well as about further enhancement of bilateral and multilateral cooperation between Montenegro and the UK.