Ambra Declich Grandi, Italian citizen, is a property and land rights activist in Montenegro.
She has studied Literature and Philosophy and has worked for international scientific organizations of the United Nations system based in Trieste.
She has been visiting regularly Montenegro since 2004 following the release of the restitution law concerning properties nationalized under the communist rule. The properties claimed for restitution by her family were never returned despite the full proofs of the relevant title deeds. Restitution has not been accomplished and privatization has been wild and hectic. Properties and lands claimed for restitution have been sold by the government to third parties without sharing the profits with the original owners, as prescribed by the law.
She was able to ascertain the lack of legitimacy and the mismanagement of property rights through 14 years of monitoring property related judicial cases at Montenegrin courts and commissions. In the absence of independent Montenegrin controlling bodies she has drafted some analytical progress reports for the European Commission since the issue of protection of property rights, as a fundamental right, is a condition for the negotiation of Chapter 23 of the EU membership agreement of Montenegro.
In 2015, when facing the threat of an expropriation Act for lands and properties, she signed and promoted the Declaration of Protection of Property Rights, in collaboration with several Montenegrin and European citizens. This symbolic Declaration was presented to the press, to international diplomacies based in Montenegro and to the President of the Montenegrin Parliament.
Between June 2011 and December 2017 she held press conferences on the issue of property rights protection in Montenegro in reference to restitution, privatization and expropriation. Conferences were held in Podgorica, Trieste and Washington.
In July 2018, in face of the escalation of legalized attacks on property and lands, she was invited by the Italian MEP Isabella De Monte, member of the EU Stabilization Parliamentary Committee, to present her advocacy to the Interparliamentary Meeting EU-Montenegro.
Ambra Declich Grandi collaborates with the following Montenegrin associations and NGOs:
- Bokobran
- Društvo prijatelja bokeljske baštine
- Matica Boke
- Tivatska akcija
- Mogul Monitoring Group
Ambra Declich Grandi is married and mother of a son; she runs a business with her husband in the Italian gourmet cuisine.
@zubergregovic
