The European Union judges Montenegro on track to join the bloc in 2028

The European Union said Wednesday that Montenegro was “on track” to join the bloc in 2028, while pressing Ukraine to accelerate the reforms necessary for its membership. In its annual report on enlargement, which takes stock of the negotiations carried out by all the candidate countries to join the EU, the European Commission welcomed the progress made by at least four of them: Moldova, Ukraine, Albania and Montenegro. And to better encourage them, she decided to set specific objectives to be achieved next year, intended to facilitate discussions.

Montenegro is by far the closest country to joining the 27. This small Balkan country of barely 600,000 inhabitants has practically finished these accession negotiations and has all the cards in hand to join the EU in 2028, after signing its accession treaty "as early as next year", according to an EU official.

The three other candidate countries, at the head of the pack, are less advanced, but all aim to join by 2030 at the latest. And according to the European Commission, Albania is able to complete its negotiations with Brussels next year. It will rather be the beginning of 2028 for Moldova, but the end of 2028 for Ukraine, according to this report, which underlines that kyiv must “accelerate” its reforms in order to respect this timetable. But everything hangs on the unanimous agreement of the 27, and on ratification of each of the accession treaties through parliament or after a referendum.

And the string of elections planned for 2027 worries defenders of a Europe with 30 or 35 member states. Marine Le Pen, far-right candidate leading the polls before the 2027 presidential election, promised during a recent visit to Brussels that she would oppose, if elected, any enlargement of the European Union. The Commission also noted the impasse in negotiations with candidate countries such as Georgia and North Macedonia.

On the other hand, she was more optimistic regarding Serbia, whose pro-Russian leanings have slowed down discussions. But the elections of October 25 offer an “opportunity to start again on new bases,” applauded Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos.