The Vice President of the European Stabilization Initiative (ESI), Kristof Bender, assessed that if Montenegro wants to fulfill all the conditions of the negotiation process with the European Union (EU) by the end of 2026, full mobilization of the state administration and full political support are necessary, preferably including the entire political spectrum.
"It is clear that Montenegro still does not meet the conditions. In order to meet them by the end of 2026, there must be a dramatic acceleration of reforms. This is possible, but it requires political will, ambition and determination," Bender said in an interview with "Vijesti".
He assessed that, if the EU accepts new members, Montenegro is in a very good position to be among the first.
"This, of course, cannot be taken for granted, but it is worth continuing with reforms. The better prepared Montenegro is, the harder it will be to refuse or delay its accession."
ESI is an independent analytical organization that deals with issues of Southeast Europe and the European Union's enlargement policy.
Bender has been part of the ESI expert team since the beginning of 2000 and has lived for a long time in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro.
Montenegro's ambition is to meet all the requirements from the negotiation process with the European Union by the end of next year. How do you assess the reality of that goal, given the current pace of reforms and the political situation in the country?
In the early 2000s, it took Slovakia less than three years, exactly 34 months, to complete the entire negotiation process, from opening the first to closing the last negotiating chapter (there are 35 in total). At that time, Slovakia was a young state, founded less than a decade earlier, and just emerging from the increasingly authoritarian rule of Vladimir Mečiar. From a purely technical point of view: if Slovakia could achieve this then, why wouldn’t Montenegro, which has been negotiating since 2012, be able to close all chapters by the end of 2026!?
Moreover, it is clear that this is a very ambitious goal. The new reformist government in Slovakia at the time had only one priority: membership in the EU and NATO. Everything else was considered secondary.
If Montenegro wants to meet all conditions by the end of 2026, full mobilization of the Montenegrin state administration and full political support are needed, preferably with the inclusion of the entire political spectrum.
In recent years, Montenegro has made very little progress in the accession process. From 2017 to 2024, not a single negotiation chapter was closed. On the one hand, this was due to the lack of will in the EU to accept new members.
The process has become significantly slower and more complicated. On the other hand, however, when looking at the annual assessments of reform progress prepared by the European Commission, it is clear that Montenegro's own progress in reforms has been very limited. It is clear that Montenegro still does not meet the conditions. To meet them by the end of 2026, there must be a dramatic acceleration of reforms. This is possible, but it requires political will, ambition and determination.
In your opinion, how feasible is it for Montenegro to become a full member of the EU by 2028, and what could be the key challenges on that path?
To become an EU member by 2028, Montenegro needs two things:
First, to implement reforms and meet all the conditions for membership. That is in Montenegro's hands. Success in this field does not depend on anyone else.
Second, to complete the formal technical steps, such as closing all negotiation chapters and ratifying the accession treaty. This is not in Montenegro's hands. Success in this segment, even if Montenegro meets all the conditions, depends largely on the EU member states. Each of them has a veto right when it comes to admitting new members.
You can count on the support of the European Commission and many EU member states, but there are also skeptics who are reluctant to support further EU enlargement.
What Montenegro can do is actively engage with key political actors in skeptical member states and try to address their concerns. For example, before Croatia became an EU member, it sent a delegation composed of representatives of the government, the opposition, and leaders of the Serbian minority in Croatia to the Netherlands to meet with MPs there and argue why Croatia should join the EU.
This approach, joint representation of interests, regardless of political orientation and national identity, left a strong impression on the interlocutors and was crucial for overcoming resistance in the Netherlands.
The European Commission has repeatedly emphasized that enlargement remains a strategic priority of the Union. How do you see Montenegro's position in this context? Do you think that Montenegro is among the countries that could be the first to take advantage of this political will from Brussels?
We must distinguish between the European Commission and the European Parliament on the one hand, two European institutions that support enlargement, and the member states on the other, some of which remain skeptical when it comes to admitting new members.
The submission of EU membership applications by Ukraine and Moldova shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has forced the EU to become more proactive in terms of enlargement. The European Commission is trying to build on this momentum. It is pushing for the opening and closing of as many negotiation chapters as possible, particularly with Ukraine, Moldova, Albania and Montenegro.
However, we still have a few countries, including major powers like France and Germany, that are holding back. Their leaders have repeatedly spoken about the need for EU enlargement. At the same time, however, they have made it clear that for enlargement to actually happen, the EU must first become more functional. What exactly that functionality would look like is still unclear. But what we do know is that significant changes require the agreement and support of all 27 member states. At the moment, that does not look promising.
So, regarding your question: if the EU were to admit new members, Montenegro is in a very good position to be among the first. This cannot be taken for granted, of course, but it is worth continuing with reforms. The better prepared Montenegro is, the harder it will be to reject or delay its accession.
How do you assess Montenegro's current position in the negotiation process with the EU, compared to other Western Balkan countries?
Despite some progress and important decisions in the last three years, the accession process as a whole is at a standstill. North Macedonia, after being blocked for reasons unrelated to reforms or European standards by Greece and then France, is now blocked by Bulgaria over issues of history and identity. Kosovo is not recognized by five EU members as an independent state. Kosovo's application for membership has not even received a response.
Bosnia and Herzegovina was subjected to demands that no other EU candidate country had to meet. The EU's claim that progress in the accession process depends primarily on reforms is no longer convincing.
Opening a chapter with Albania and closing several chapters with Montenegro was not enough to restore the credibility of the process in countries like North Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This is bad for the stability of the entire region. After the terrible, war-torn decade of the 1990s, the EU offered all the countries in the region an attractive vision of a better, peaceful and prosperous future as EU members.
For many countries, that vision has now shifted into the very distant future. Several political leaders, most notably Aleksandar Vučić and Milorad Dodik, have returned to old political narratives about the need to defend one’s own nation, about rearming and caring for one’s own minorities in neighboring countries. These are dangerous developments in a region with a mixed population and fresh war memories. Everyone knows how it ended when similar arguments were used in the early 1990s.
A renewed commitment to the EU could be an urgently needed stabilizing factor. If it cannot credibly promise full membership in the current situation, it should at least offer an attractive intermediate goal on the path to membership. The EU could announce that if a country meets all the criteria, but the EU is not yet ready to accept new members, that country or countries would be immediately included in the European Single Market, with full access to the four freedoms and EU funds. This would essentially mean membership without voting rights.
This has already worked once before when EU enlargement was unpopular among member states: Austria, Finland and Sweden were the first to join the Single Market. Then, when political circumstances changed, they quickly became full EU members, already well prepared.
Many hope that, even if there is no new major wave of enlargement, Montenegro, as a small and progressive country, may be lucky enough to “slip through” and be admitted. But even in that case, an interim solution in the form of membership in the Single Market would not harm Montenegro. With the continuation of the formal accession process, Montenegro could of course become a full member. But for other countries in the region, such an attractive interim goal, offered by the EU, would be crucial. It would stabilize the region, which is also in Montenegro’s interest.
Denmark will hold the presidency of the Council of the European Union during the second half of this year. In your opinion, how much can this presidency be stimulating for Montenegro's European path, given Denmark's support for the EU enlargement process and reforms in the Western Balkans region in recent years? Can we expect more concrete progress in the negotiation process during that period?
Denmark's Minister for European Affairs has said that her country will actively promote EU enlargement. While the primary focus may be more on Ukraine and Moldova, it is also good for the Western Balkans and Montenegro. The current accession process suffers from credibility problems. If a country like Montenegro takes concrete steps towards membership, it will help both the European Commission and the member states that support EU enlargement to show that the process can really work.
Which EU initiatives, such as the Western Balkans Growth Plan, could have the greatest impact on Montenegro's negotiation dynamics?
Over the last two decades, the EU or its member states have devised a whole series of new instruments, from the Stability Pact and the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), to the Berlin Process, to the European Political Community and the Growth Agenda. I think they were all invented to create the impression that the process of European integration was progressing, when in reality it was stalled.
I don't think these inventions are necessary to help countries complete the accession process. The reforms needed to meet the criteria for EU membership are already ambitious enough.
For countries that want to become members, it may be best to focus on implementing the necessary reforms and demonstrating that they are ready to become valuable and reliable new members of the EU.
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