"The Council of Europe stands with you, with the LGBTI community, today and every day, to block the hatred and share the love!" By these words, the former Head of Operations of the Council of Europe Programme Office in Montenegro, Evgenia Giakoumopoulou, expressed support to the Montenegrin Pride Parade and encouraged citizens to participate. The jubilee tenth Pride was organised on 8 October 2022 by the partner NGO Queer Montenegro under the slogan “No more BUT (Nema više ALI)”. According to organiser`s estimates, this Pride was one of the most attended and received much higher support from citizens than usual, from the day the information about the event went viral.

The European Union and the Council of Europe supported the production of five awareness raising videos as a part of the counter-narrative campaign 'Montenegro Pride-Share the Love', which also embeds into the larger regional campaign 'Block the hatred. Share the love' dedicated to fight against hate speech and promote diversity in Montenegro and in the Western Balkans Beneficiaries. In one of videos, civil society activists talk more about what has changed compared to the first Pride Parade. A brief analysis of the current situation in the area of LGBTI rights was provided in another video. Milos Knezevic, executive director of Queer Montenegro, tells his personal story and explains why the Pride Parade is important while public figures, such as singer Vladana Vucinic, speaks about importance of raising public awareness to fight for rights of LGBTI persons.

Nevertheless, the fight is not over. The LGBTI community in Montenegro still faces numerous challenges in their everyday lives. In the 2022 report on Montenegro, the European Commission emphasised that hate speech and homophobic incidents against LGBTI persons, including hate speech committed by the members of Parliament, represent a matter of grave concern.

The granting scheme on local initiatives against hate speech in Montenegro is conducted within the action “Promotion of diversity and equality in Montenegro”, part of the joint European Union/Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”.