Brussels – Nine negotiating chapters – four to be opened and five to be closed. Four candidate countries are taking significant new steps towards EU accession. On 14 July, the EU enlargement agenda will see another intense day, once again demonstrating the renewed momentum behind the process.
The mood surrounding the four Accession Conferences to be held on the margins of the General Affairs Council meeting is positive, especially given that “interest has never been so strong,” as one EU official told The New Union Post. Yet, compared with the high expectations of just one month ago, this latest super-day for the accession process can hardly be described as the “Terrific Tuesday” that Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos had hoped for.
It is true that Montenegro and Albania will achieve their respective goals of closing accession chapters – two fewer chapters to the finish line for the former, and the first three for the latter. However, after opening Cluster 1 – ‘Fundamentals’, the real prize was to do the same with the remaining five clusters for Ukraine and Moldova. Opening the two chapters under Cluster 6 – ‘External Relations’, is a positive outcome, but it is likely to leave a bitter taste in both candidates’ mouths.
One more cluster for Ukraine and Moldova
On 14 July, both Ukraine and Moldova will open Cluster 6 – ‘External Relations’ during two separate third Accession Conferences. This cluster comprises two negotiating chapters – Chapter 30 (External Relations) and Chapter 31 (Foreign, Security and Defence Policy) – bringing the number of chapters opened for negotiation by both candidates to seven (out of 33).
The opening of Cluster 1 – ‘Fundamentals’ on 15 June was expected to mark a turning point in the decoupling of the “package approach” that has tied the two accession dossiers together since the membership applications were submitted in 2022, allowing each candidate to be assessed strictly on its own merits. However, “in practice, that is not the case,” a diplomatic source told The New Union Post, confirming that, at the political level, “there is a link – until there is no longer one.”
Hungary no longer blocks Ukraine across the board – as it did under Viktor Orbán – following the “comprehensive agreement” with Kyiv on expanding the rights of the Hungarian minority in the Transcarpathia region. Yet, Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar warned that the EU “cannot bypass” the Western Balkans “with a different kind of enlargement process” for Ukraine and Moldova.
Decoupling will happen “when, de facto, it becomes clear that it has happened – when one moves faster and the other more slowly,” another EU source explained. As The New Union Post understands, after the summer break the Irish Presidency of the Council will seek to open one cluster at each General Affairs Council meeting from September to December, with the aim of opening all negotiations with both candidates before the end of the year.
More than half of the work done for Montenegro
The frontrunner in the accession process will provisionally close another two chapters on 14 July during the 28th Accession Conference – Chapter 8 (Competition Policy) and Chapter 29 (Customs Union). This will bring the total number of provisionally closed chapters to 18, six of which have been closed in 2026. It will now fall to the Irish Presidency to conclude negotiations on the remaining 15 chapters.
Meanwhile, discussions are ongoing on the €3.2 billion financial package for Montenegro’s accession proposed by the European Commission, which has set out the estimated amount of EU funding that the prospective new member state would receive under the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) – the EU’s seven-year budget – together with the budgetary adjustments required to accommodate its accession.
As the financial package falls under Chapter 33 (Financial and Budgetary Provisions) of the EU accession negotiations, the government in Podgorica is “also preparing the plan for the budget” with a view to EU membership in 2028, Montenegro’s Minister of European Affairs, Maida Gorčević, revealed in an interview with The New Union Post.
Podgorica’s goal remains to submit all the remaining negotiating positions to the Commission and to conclude the accession negotiations by the end of the year. The ultimate objective is to become the 28th EU member state by 2028, “somewhere in the middle” of the year, Gorčević specified.
First EU accession chapters closed for Albania
The ninth Accession Conference on 14 July will be historic for Albania, as it will serve to close the first three chapters of its EU accession path – Chapter 25 (Science and Research), Chapter 26 (Education and Culture) and Chapter 30 (External Relations).
This will happen just weeks after the Council confirmed that Albania has fulfilled the interim benchmarks – the mid-process rule of law conditions that must be satisfied before negotiations can move to the next stage – and set the closing benchmarks for Cluster 1 – ‘Fundamentals’, the first cluster to be opened and the last to be closed. In Tirana, the goal is to conclude negotiations by 2027, with full membership in sight by 2030.
Meanwhile, the government in Tirana is under increasing pressure due to citizens’ protests against the redevelopment project in Zvërnec, in the district of Vlorë, involving both the uninhabited island of Sazan in the Adriatic and hundreds of hectares of the Vjosa-Narta protected area. The project by Affinity Partners – the company owned by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump – is another example of so-called “corrosive capital” and clashes with the scope of Chapter 27 (Environment and Climate Change), one of the most challenging chapters for candidate countries.
