Baosici: Montenegro Moves to Annul Carine Permit
Podgorica has told authorities to start annulling the building permit Carine received for the Baosici shoreline, and the November 1 deadline applies to just one ministry.
The Montenegrin government adopted conclusions at an electronic session on October 14 that instruct the relevant authorities to start annulling the building permit the Herceg Novi municipality issued to the company Carine on January 13, 2026, for work on the shoreline in Baosici. The aim is to return the site on the Bay of Kotor, which is on the UNESCO list, to its original state.
The permit covers cadastral parcels 771, 772, 773/1 and 774 in the Baosici cadastral municipality. The government also adopted the Ministry of Culture and Media’s report on the site.
What exactly did the government conclude?
The conclusions do not contain a direct demolition order. They divide tasks among several institutions:
- The Protector of Property and Legal Interests of Montenegro is to take steps to annul the January 13, 2026 building permit. The Herceg Novi municipality, specifically its Secretariat for Urbanism and Building Inspection, is advised to do the same.
- The Management Board of the public enterprise for managing the maritime domain (Morsko Dobro) is to withdraw its opinions on the Conceptual Design of December 4, 2025 and on the Main Design of December 12, 2025.
- The Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property is to issue urban and technical requirements under the “Sector 5” State Location Study for Kumbor, Djenovici and Baosici.
- Once those requirements are issued, the Morsko Dobro Management Board is to begin drafting technical documentation, under a decision of the Administration for the Protection of Cultural Property, to restore the site to its original state.
Why is the permit being challenged?
The report states that the Herceg Novi municipal authority issued Carine the permit without first obtaining the Administration for the Protection of Cultural Property’s consent to the project documentation. According to the same document, the duty to follow conservation requirements was not met when the design was drawn up and an opinion was given on it, or before the permit was issued. The legal consequences therefore need to be removed, the report says, by annulling the acts that were adopted unlawfully.
The Administration for the Protection of Cultural Property had earlier issued conservation requirements. They call for removing the newly built structures and the dumped fill, restoring the old mandrac (small harbor), and rehabilitating the coastal part of the site. Removal of the embankment, then, follows from those requirements and not from the government’s conclusions themselves.
What came before the decision?
Montenegrin police previously accused Carine’s owner, Cedo Popovic, of organizing the dumping of fill on the shore in Baosici, along with reinforcing and concreting, which damaged the natural setting and took over part of the water area of the Bay of Kotor. The bay lies within a protected cultural and natural heritage zone on the UNESCO list. Popovic rejected the accusations.
What is the deadline, and what comes next?
The only deadline in the conclusions applies to the Ministry of Spatial Planning: by November 1, 2026, it must report to the government on the steps it has taken. That is not a deadline for restoring the shoreline. The published text of the conclusions gives no date for drafting the technical documentation or for the work itself, and that step depends on the urban and technical requirements being issued first.
