For years, European integration in the Western Balkans felt like a process permanently stuck between ambition and postponement. Negotiations advanced, governments changed, reforms were announced, and yet membership always seemed to remain somewhere beyond the horizon.
This month, Montenegro crossed an important threshold.
At the Intergovernmental Conference in Luxembourg on 15 June, the country provisionally closed two additional negotiating chapters: Chapter 2 on the Free Movement of Workers and Chapter 28 on Consumer and Health Protection. The move brought the total number of provisionally closed chapters to sixteen out of thirty-three, making Montenegro by far the most advanced candidate country in the European Union’s enlargement process.
On paper, that may look like another technical step in a long negotiation. In reality, it signals something much larger.
Only a year ago, the key question was whether Montenegro could regain momentum after years of slow progress. Today, the conversation in Brussels has shifted to a different issue: how and when Montenegro could become the European Union’s next member state.
The clearest indication came in April when EU member states formally launched work on drafting Montenegro’s Accession Treaty. This is not a symbolic exercise. The treaty is the legal document every future member signs before joining the Union. Brussels would not be investing political capital and administrative resources into drafting such a document if membership remained a distant or hypothetical possibility.
The change reflects a broader shift inside the European Union itself.
For much of the past decade, enlargement was overshadowed by Brexit, migration pressures, the pandemic and internal political disputes. Today, geopolitical realities have pushed enlargement back to the centre of the European agenda. The war in Ukraine, growing competition for influence in Southeast Europe and concerns about long-term regional stability have convinced many European leaders that leaving the Western Balkans in a permanent waiting room is no longer a sustainable strategy.
This is precisely why Montenegro matters.
With a population of roughly 630,000, Montenegro would be one of the European Union’s smallest member states. Economically, its accession would have only a limited impact on the Union. Politically, however, it could have enormous significance. After Croatia’s entry in 2013, Europe has spent more than a decade promising that enlargement remains alive. Montenegro now has an opportunity to become the first concrete proof that those promises still carry weight.
Yet celebration would be premature.
The most difficult chapters remain open. Competition Policy (Chapter 8), Customs Union (Chapter 29), Environment and Climate Change (Chapter 27), as well as the rule-of-law chapters that ultimately determine the credibility of the entire process, still require substantial work. Corruption, judicial independence and institutional effectiveness remain the areas most closely watched by Brussels.
Prime Minister Milojko Spajić’s government continues to target the end of 2026 for closing all negotiating chapters and 2028 for full membership. It is an ambitious timetable, but no longer an unrealistic one. Even European Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos has publicly stated that completing negotiations by the end of 2026 is achievable if the current pace of reforms is maintained.
The significance of this moment extends beyond Montenegro.
For the first time in many years, the Western Balkans have before them a real accession case rather than a theoretical one. If Montenegro reaches the finish line, it will demonstrate that reforms are still rewarded and that membership remains attainable. If it stalls, scepticism across the region will deepen overnight.
That is why the story unfolding in Podgorica is no longer only about Montenegro. It is becoming a test of whether the European Union can still transform promises into policy and aspirations into membership.
After years of waiting, both sides are finally approaching the moment when they must prove it.
