Podgorica: Montenegro has pulled clear of the pack in the European Union’s enlargement race, closing two more accession chapters in mid-July and passing the half-way mark for the first time. The small Adriatic state has now provisionally closed 18 of the 33 negotiating chapters, leaving 15 still to settle.

The latest conference wrapped up the files on competition and on the customs union, barely a month after negotiators sealed the chapters on free movement of workers and on health and consumer protection. The Commission has repeatedly praised Podgorica’s steady pace, holding it up as proof that the accession machinery can still deliver when a candidate does the work.

Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos has said Montenegro could finish negotiations and join the bloc by 2028. The target is ambitious, and officials caution that closing chapters is not the same as meeting every benchmark, but the momentum is real after years in which the process seemed frozen.

That drift had a cost. For much of the past decade enlargement stalled as fatigue set in on both sides and candidates lost faith that membership would ever arrive. Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine revived the project, recasting expansion as a matter of security rather than bureaucratic housekeeping.

Montenegro is not moving alone. Albania has completed its first three chapters and Moldova is advancing on its own track, part of a wider revival across the Western Balkans and the eastern neighbourhood. Yet Montenegro’s lead is now unmistakable, and Podgorica has staked its credibility on holding it.

Domestic politics will decide whether the pace survives. A slim parliamentary majority and public impatience over living standards test the resolve in Podgorica, and reforms that look neat on paper often stall when they touch entrenched interests. Voters want the rewards of membership, not only the discipline it demands.

The hardest work still lies ahead. The rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and the fight against organised crime sit among the 15 chapters yet to close, and they are precisely the areas that have tripped up candidates before. Closing the technical files is one thing; reforming institutions is another.

For the EU, a credible Montenegrin timetable offers a rare good-news story on enlargement and a template for others to follow. For citizens in Podgorica, the promise of membership by decade’s end finally feels less like rhetoric and more like a deadline worth planning around, provided the reform drive does not falter at the final and most demanding hurdles.