26. Acknowledges the steps taken by the Montenegrin Government to ensure freedom of expression in the media through the adoption of the law on electronic media and amendments to the Criminal Code but calls for further steps to ensure the independence and professionalism of media outlets, including strengthening the capacity and independence of the public broadcaster; calls on the Montenegrin authorities to demonstrate their commitment with a view to ensuring that the media sector operates without political interf ...[+++]erence and that the independence of regulatory bodies is guaranteed; draws attention to disproportionate fines for defamation, which continue to hamper the freedom and independence of the work of journalists, and calls for the legislation and practice on defamation to be aligned fully with the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights; stresses that reported cases of intimidation and physical violence against journalists as well as against civil society activists must be fully investigated and prosecuted where appropriate; underlines the importance of journalists applying high professional standards and a professional code of ethics;

26. Acknowledges the steps taken by the Montenegrin Government to ensure freedom of expression in the media through the adoption of the law on electronic media and amendments to the Criminal Code but calls for further steps to ensure the independence and professionalism of media outlets, including strengthening the capacity and independence of the public broadcaster; calls on the Montenegrin authorities to demonstrate their commitment with a view to ensuring that the media sector operates without political interf ...[+++]erence and that the independence of regulatory bodies is guaranteed; draws attention to disproportionate fines for defamation, which continue to hamper the freedom and independence of the work of journalists, and calls for the legislation and practice on defamation to be aligned fully with the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights; stresses that reported cases of intimidation and physical violence against journalists as well as against civil society activists must be fully investigated and prosecuted where appropriate; underlines the importance of journalists applying high professional standards and a professional code of ethics;

‘matching II code’ means the II code decoded by a Mode S transponder not supporting SI codes, in a Mode S all call interrogation containing an SI code, and which is used by this transponder to encode the all call reply.

Mode S interrogators, when operating with an SI code and if enabled by an appropriate operational parameter, shall interrogate transponders lacking SI code capability using the Mode S multisite lockout protocol messages foreseen for II code operation.

‘monitoring of interrogator code conflict’ means the implementation, by a Mode S operator, of technical or procedural means, for identifying the effects of interrogator code conflicts with other Mode S interrogators on the surveillance data provided by its own Mode S interrogators.

7. Welcomes the Commission's proposal to establish, by means of an interinstitutional agreement, a committee on standards in public life; considers that such a committee should have a purely advisory role, and that its membership should be subject to approval by the European Parliament; considers that this committee should play a different role towards different groups within the institutions, and that, in particular, the independence of Members of the European Parliament and Parliament as an institution must be guaranteed; also takes note of the introduction of sectoral code ...[+++]s, such as the code of ethics for staff in the Internal Audit Service (IAS) (see Action 68); stresses that this proliferation of codes should not result in confusion and lack of clarity as regards the rules in force and stresses the importance of ensuring that these codes are consistent with staff regulations (see Actions 55 and 56);