August 10, 2026

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August 10, 2026

Newsletter

The European Post

Policy • Diplomacy • Strategic Insight

LATEST
After Nine Years, Europe and Australia Seal a Trade PactBeijing Answers Europe’s Russia Sanctions in KindOne Year On, the EU-Japan Alliance Faces Its First TestEurope’s Chip Ambitions Still Run Through Taiwan’s FabsWhy South Korea Bet Its Research Future on Europe’s ProgrammeEurope and Japan Deepen Their Economic Alliance as Rivals CircleFive Joint Defence Projects Launch Europe’s Military ShieldElectrification Plan Aims to Make Europe First Electro ContinentHorizon Europe Budget Fight Heats Up as Ministers Push BackGoogle’s DMA Fine Sets Off a Transatlantic Tariff ClashTwenty New University Alliances Join Erasmus for Two YearsForeign Subsidies Case Puts Temu in the EU’s SightsVan Tachographs Now Mandatory for Cross-Border FleetsStress Test Exposes Gaps in Euro Area Bank DefencesEurope Bets on a Gulf Partnership Before the Riyadh SummitWhy the Atlantic Route Now Runs Through MauritaniaKyiv and Chisinau Advance as the EU Accession Talks Gather PaceEurope’s New Digital Border System Beds In After a Rocky RolloutBrussels Mounts Its Largest Wildfire Response as the Fires SpreadRetail Spending Slipped in June, Wrong-Footing EconomistsAfter Nine Years, Europe and Australia Seal a Trade PactBeijing Answers Europe’s Russia Sanctions in KindOne Year On, the EU-Japan Alliance Faces Its First TestEurope’s Chip Ambitions Still Run Through Taiwan’s FabsWhy South Korea Bet Its Research Future on Europe’s ProgrammeEurope and Japan Deepen Their Economic Alliance as Rivals CircleFive Joint Defence Projects Launch Europe’s Military ShieldElectrification Plan Aims to Make Europe First Electro ContinentHorizon Europe Budget Fight Heats Up as Ministers Push BackGoogle’s DMA Fine Sets Off a Transatlantic Tariff ClashTwenty New University Alliances Join Erasmus for Two YearsForeign Subsidies Case Puts Temu in the EU’s SightsVan Tachographs Now Mandatory for Cross-Border FleetsStress Test Exposes Gaps in Euro Area Bank DefencesEurope Bets on a Gulf Partnership Before the Riyadh SummitWhy the Atlantic Route Now Runs Through MauritaniaKyiv and Chisinau Advance as the EU Accession Talks Gather PaceEurope’s New Digital Border System Beds In After a Rocky RolloutBrussels Mounts Its Largest Wildfire Response as the Fires SpreadRetail Spending Slipped in June, Wrong-Footing Economists

Montenegro Closes Half Its Chapters and Eyes 2028 Entry

Anders Oftebro
Legislative Tracker, Enlargement

Podgorica: Montenegro has now provisionally closed eighteen of its accession chapters, half the total, after ministers wrapped up two more tracks at an intergovernmental conference in mid-July. The Montenegro accession file, long the most advanced in the Western Balkans, has picked up visible speed this year, and the government still names 2028 as its target for full membership.

The July session shut Chapter 8 on competition policy and Chapter 29 on the customs union, two areas where candidates often stall because they touch state aid, monopolies and border control. Closing them signals that Montenegro’s rules and enforcement bodies have satisfied the Commission’s benchmarks, at least on paper. The country’s leaders want every remaining chapter closed by the end of this year, which would leave 2027 and 2028 for ratification across the Union’s capitals.

Montenegro moved as part of a broader push that also carried Albania, Moldova and Ukraine forward on the same day, in what officials called one of the biggest enlargement moments in two decades. Albania, whose talks are due to conclude in 2027, closed its first three chapters covering science, education and external relations. The Council’s enlargement pages track the state of each negotiation, and they show how uneven the field remains behind the frontrunner.

Diplomats credit part of the acceleration to a shift in the Union’s own politics. Ukraine’s path had been blocked for years by resistance in Budapest, and a change of government in Hungary loosened that grip, freeing the Council to advance several files at once. The enlargement machinery, dormant for much of the last decade, has started to turn again, and candidate states are racing to use the window.

Speed carries its own risks. Closing a chapter provisionally is not the same as delivering lasting reform, and past enlargements taught the Union that rule-of-law backsliding can follow accession rather than precede it. Montenegro still faces scrutiny over judicial independence, organised crime and media freedom, the areas grouped under the fundamentals that any credible bid must satisfy. The Commission insists those chapters will stay open until the evidence is convincing.

For Podgorica the prize is concrete. Membership would anchor a small economy inside the single market, unlock structural funds and settle a strategic question in a region where outside powers compete for influence. The government sells the 2028 goal as within reach, and the chapter count now supports the claim more than it once did.

The final stretch tends to be the slowest. Ratification requires every existing member to agree, and bilateral disputes have derailed accessions before. Montenegro has closed the easier half of its file. The chapters that remain, on justice, corruption and fundamental rights, will decide whether 2028 holds.

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