On 3 August 2022, the amendments to the Construction Law (the “Law“) entered into force. The Law enacts new provisions that are of essential importance for enabling further development of energy transition in Montenegro. In addition, the doubts regarding the deadline for the adoption of the long-awaited General Regulation Plan of Montenegro (the “Plan”) have been resolved.

It seems that the general impression of regulation in Montenegro was that it does not support in an adequate way the strategic orientation of the Government of Montenegro (the “GoM”) regarding necessity for achieving energy transition. One of the steps that were needed to be taken was related to the Law adoption.

In that line, the Law amended the previous provision related to definition of auxiliary structures, in a manner that photovoltaic panels are now not considered to be auxiliary structures. The purpose of this amendment is to enable citizens interested in implementation of photovoltaic systems to conduct the implementation process without need of prior obtaining urban – technical conditions (the “UTC”).

In addition, the Law added new provision with respect to enhancement of construction of renewables structures. Specifically, the Law envisaged that the UTC for construction of renewables structures can be issued by the GoM, based on the investor’s request, until the adoption of the Plan. Prior to issuance of UTC by the GoM, it would be necessary to obtain the opinions from several competent bodies with respect to the justification of the request submitted by the investor. More details on criteria for determining whether the investor’s request should be approved are expected to be resolved through the by-law that will be adopted by Ministry of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism.

The primary reason for adoption of this provision is significant increase of market price of electricity.  Market prices of electricity have been multiplied in last several months, while the European countries tend to achieve control over the prices increase. Such tendencies are expected to have stabilization of electricity prices as a result, and are mostly manifested through the amendments to respective European regulations related to decrease of period necessary for obtaining construction permits for solar power plants construction.

With respect to Montenegro, non-existence of detailed urban plans and ambiguous provisions of legislation with respect to construction of solar power plants resulted in a slow progress of solar power plants construction, especially those with planned installed power of more than 5 MW. Therefore, considering the fact that solar power plants are considered to be the structures that do not result in continuous devastation of spatial purpose envisaged under the existing planning documentation, the procedure of solar power plants construction should be now eased and accelerated, in order to achieve effective servicing of the increase needs for electricity production.

The extension of period for Plan adoption

Considering that previous provisions envisaged that the Plan should be adopted until 14 October 2022, and with respect to the fact that such deadline will not be achieved, the Law amended specific provision, in order to state that the Plan should be adopted until 14 October 2023.

The information contained in this document is given for general purposes only and should not be interpreted as legal advice on any particular matter.