Europe has set the clock — but the Adria region must decide whether it is preparing for an open door… or a moving target.
or years, 2030 drifted across the region like a polite promise — close enough to inspire hope, distant enough to ignore. That era is over. Brussels has put dates, expectations and pressure on the table. But behind every announcement hides the question no one here or in Europe likes to ask out loud: is the EU really ready for another enlargement, or is the region preparing for an exam that the teacher might postpone again?
Recent weeks have brought more movement than some whole years before them. Albania has entered the final stretch of negotiations. Montenegro has been told — unusually directly — that it could be Europe’s next new member. Croatia is among the EU’s growth leaders yet brushing against the limits of its labour force. Slovenia is quietly building an AI and supercomputing arsenal that could determine its competitiveness for decades. Further south, EU funds and digitalisation programmes are pushing transformation faster than local politics usually tolerates.
But politics is where the region’s fault lines are widening. Serbia has received its toughest assessment in years. North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina remain suspended between potential and paralysis. Public trust in enlargement is thinning, often for good reason. And the region has split into three speeds: the front-runners, the frustrated and the self-sabotagers.
Yet the other half of the story lies on the EU side of the equation. Europe itself is entering a period of turbulence — elections, shifting coalitions, security anxieties, migration pressures and a deepening industrial transition. Enlargement has become not just a merit-based process but a political calculation. The Union knows it needs stability in its southeast; it is less certain how fast its own members want to welcome new ones. In Brussels, optimism and hesitation now live in the same sentence.
This is why, last November in Belgrade, we convened ministers, EU officials, investors and innovators for Western Balkans 2030. For a day, scripted niceties gave way to something rarer: deadlines, deliverables and uncomfortable truths. The message was direct: Europe is willing to move, but it will not drag anyone — and it might change shape before we get there.
Meanwhile, another dynamic is reshaping Adria from below: business, science and cities are sprinting ahead of governments. Renewable- energy projects, AI labs, logistics corridors and cross-border start-ups are integrating the region faster than any treaty. A new generation of professionals is emerging — people who see Adria not as a collection of small markets but as a single economic zone with shared ambitions. If governments hesitate, this generation will not wait for political permission.
So as we open this issue of The Region, the real question isn’t whether EU enlargement will happen. It likely will — but perhaps not in the form, timeline or political climate anyone expects. The more urgent question is this: who in Adria is building resilience, competitiveness and credibility for a Europe that itself is changing? Who is preparing for membership — and who is preparing for the possibility that membership might come later, in phases, or under tougher terms?
The next five years will define far more than accession. They will determine whether Adria becomes a contributor to Europe’s economic core — or a bystander adjusting to decisions made elsewhere.
Our task, as ever, is simple: cut through the noise, measure the real progress, name the gaps, and tell the story honestly — even when it stings. The countdown has begun. And this time, the uncertainty is part of the truth.
Welcome to the issue •