Brussels – A critical week is opening on EU enlargement – a potential make-or-break juncture for the future of some candidate countries – and it is packed with events that demand careful attention. Because they will expose where EU member states really stand on issues ranging from support for Ukraine to the integration of the Western Balkans, in both the big political choices and the less visible technical details.
Everything will start on Tuesday, 16 December, with the General Affairs Council, where conclusions on EU enlargement will be adopted. The Council will take stock of the state of play after another year of either progress or stagnation in the accession process of the ten countries aspiring to join the Union.
On Wednesday, 17 December, attention will shift to the EU-Western Balkans Summit, the annual meeting between the 27 EU heads of state and government and their counterparts in the partner region. Discussions will cover progress on reforms and pre-accession integration, alignment with EU foreign policy, and cooperation in migration management.
The week will culminate with the European Council on Thursday, 18, and Friday, 19 December. Enlargement will be on the agenda, framed as “the most important geostrategic investment in peace, security, stability and prosperity.” But the Council will also tackle pressing issues like securing funding for Ukraine over the next two years and setting a political mandate for negotiations on the next EU budget, with all the unresolved questions surrounding the impact on the EU’s external action.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these events.
The 2025 conclusions on EU enlargement
Within the Council, this is undoubtedly the most awaited moment when it comes to the technical and political work on the dossiers of candidates and potential candidates to join the EU. On 16 December, the ministers for European Affairs will examine and adopt the 2025 conclusions on EU enlargement – the document that sets out the state of play, identifies the key challenges, and formulates recommendations for each partner.
The conclusions on EU enlargement serve as an annual roadmap for the work to be carried forward in the year ahead. They build on the European Commission’s communication on enlargement policy, which constitutes half of the annual Enlargement Package.
Drawing on the latest strategic report of the Commission – published on 4 November – ministers are expected to confirm the steady progress made by Montenegro, Albania, Moldova, and Ukraine; assess the difference degrees of alignment with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP); acknowledge the continued stalemate in North Macedonia; and highlight the severe setback in Georgia, now regarded as a candidate country “only on paper,” much like Türkiye. They will also address the political challenges in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo – which is due to hold early elections on 28 December – as well as the ongoing democratic backsliding in Serbia.
Before the start of the General Affairs Council, in the morning of 16 December, the 24th Accession Conference with Montenegro is expected to provisionally close five more negotiating chapters: Chapters 3 (Right of Establishment and Freedom to Provide Services), 4 (Free Movement of Capital), 6 (Company Law), 11 (Agriculture and Rural Development), and 13 (Fisheries)
The summit with the Western Balkans’ leaders
After an unusual sequence of events – in which the formal announcement was made with minimal advance notice, even though the date of next year’s edition had been known for more than a month – the 2025 EU-Western Balkans Summit will take place on 17 December. This marks the fourth consecutive year that Brussels hosts the event, with the only exception being the additional extraordinary meeting held in Tirana in December 2022.
As has now become a tradition, the EU-Western Balkans Summit will be held on the eve of the last European Council of the year, bringing EU leaders to Brussels a day early to meet their Western Balkan counterparts for the annual gathering.
According to the final agenda, the EU-Western Balkans Summit will reaffirm the importance of the “strategic relationship” between the two regions “and the benefits it brings to citizens.” The final declaration is expected to address several key issues: the “full and unequivocal commitment” to the EU membership perspective of the Western Balkans; gradual integration into the EU Single Market through the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, which will also incentivise “the necessary EU-related reforms”; full alignment with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy; and enhanced cooperation on migration management.
Yet perhaps even more significant will be what is absent from the final declaration – namely, the bilateral and multilateral discussions on specific issues shaping relations between the EU and the candidate countries, between current member states and potential future ones, and among the Western Balkan countries themselves.
Ukraine, MFF, and enlargement at the European Council
The main event of the week, however, will be the European Council on 18-19 December, where the issue of EU enlargement will return in several forms. It will feature first in the summit’s own conclusions on enlargement, which will build on the document endorsed on 16 December by the 27 ministers. With President Costa stressing that the accession process remains “merit-based,” its “profoundly transformative effect” has brought some candidates – notably Albania and Montenegro – close to fulfilling the conditions for membership “in the not-too-distant future,” forcing current member states to consider both the political and technical implications.
It is Ukraine, however, that will dominate the discussions among the 27 leaders, as they confront the most sensitive question of all: how to cover its funding gap over the next two years, estimated at roughly €135.7 billion. On 3 December, the European Commission put forward two proposals to meet €90 billion of Ukraine’s financing needs for 2026 and 2027. As EU borrowing backed by the common budget requires unanimity among all 27 Member States, the preferred solution is the so-called ‘reparations loan’, which would allow the Commission to borrow against the cash balances of EU financial institutions holding immobilised Russian Central Bank assets.
Amounting to roughly €210 billion across several Member States – including Belgium (€185 billion held by Euroclear and €7 billion in commercial banks), France (€18 billion), and, to a lesser extent, Germany (€200 million), Cyprus (€100 million), Sweden and Luxembourg (€10,000) – the Russian assets were permanently frozen on 12 December. The negotiations on whether to use them for Ukraine – which would repay the loan only once Russia has compensated the war damages – are expected to be highly tense, due to resistance from Belgium and other countries wary of financial and legal risks, or of jeopardising peace talks brokered by the Trump administration. “We have to decide,” President Costa made clear.
Last but not least, the European Council will, for the first time, consider the proposal for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), covering the period 2028-2034. “Intense work will be necessary to reach an agreement by the end of 2026,” President Costa stressed, noting the preparatory work already carried out by the Danish Presidency on the so-called negotiating box to pave the way for the next phase of discussions. With respect to EU enlargement, it is already clear that not only does the overall design of the new Global Europe Instrument raise concerns on how external action will be financed, but the proposed allocations also fall well short of what will be needed to fund this EU priority.
