The European Commission published its annual enlargement report on 4 November 2025, assessing nine candidate countries plus Kosovo as a potential candidate. Among them, Montenegro stands out as by far the most advanced, with officials now openly discussing a concrete path toward membership within three years.
Montenegro opened accession negotiations in 2012, longer ago than any other current candidate. According to the Commission, the small Balkan country of roughly 620,000 people could complete its negotiations by the end of 2026, sign an accession treaty as early as June 2027, and become the EU’s 28th member state in 2028.
“At the current pace, we will be ready to sign the accession treaty as soon as June 2027,” said Marta Kos, the EU’s Commissioner for Enlargement.
A crowded field of candidates
Montenegro is not alone in making headway. Kos said Albania, Ukraine and Moldova also “stand out” in this year’s assessment, according to the Italian outlet eunews.it. Albania could become the EU’s 29th member as soon as 2029 if it sustains its reform momentum, while Moldova aims to wrap up its own negotiations before 2028. Ukraine, despite the disruption of Russia’s ongoing invasion, is also pursuing a 2028 target, the report found.
Other candidates lag further behind. Serbia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Türkiye and Georgia were all assessed as less advanced. The EU’s High Representative noted that progress in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been specifically undermined by developments in Republika Srpska, one of the country’s two autonomous entities.
What still needs to happen
Even for Montenegro, membership is not guaranteed on the current timeline. The Commission says the country still needs to implement reforms in fundamental rights and financial services. During 2025, Montenegro provisionally closed negotiation chapters covering company law, agriculture, fisheries and capital movement, and further chapters were expected to close in December.
Once negotiations conclude, any accession treaty must be ratified by all 27 current EU member states, a process that can take time even after political agreement is reached. “This is a merit based process,” Kos said, emphasising that progress depends on each country meeting the bloc’s conditions rather than following a fixed political schedule.
Those conditions, known as the Copenhagen criteria, require candidate countries to have stable democratic institutions, a functioning market economy and the capacity to take on the obligations of EU membership. They were first agreed in 1993, during Denmark’s presidency of the European Council, and have governed every enlargement round since.
The Commission argues the stakes extend beyond the candidate countries themselves. It says past rounds of enlargement have boosted the EU’s overall economy by 27 percent cumulatively, a figure it is using to make the case for continued expansion despite the political sensitivities involved. “Overall, 2025 was a year of significant progress for EU enlargement,” Kos said.
This article was researched and drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by Lasse Pedersen before publication. How we use AI
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