Podgorica: Montenegro’s accession arithmetic crossed an important threshold this spring with the provisional closure of Chapter 21 on Trans-European Networks at the twenty-sixth accession conference held in March, lifting the country to fourteen closed chapters out of a total of thirty-three. The closure follows the January provisional close of Chapter 32 on Financial Control and continues a pattern of steady, methodical sign-offs that Montenegrin negotiators have been pushing through cluster by cluster since the interim benchmark assessment cleared the path two years ago.
Nineteen chapters remain open, with three still under review at the Commission’s services level. The three under review, Chapter 18 on Statistics, Chapter 23 on Judiciary and Fundamental Rights, and Chapter 24 on Justice, Freedom and Security, are not procedural footnotes. They are the chapters that have historically defined whether a candidate can credibly claim readiness for membership, and the country received its positive interim benchmark assessment in 2024 on Chapters 23 and 24 precisely because the technical conditions had finally been met. Closure of those two files, however, is a different exercise from interim benchmark sign-off, and the political bar is higher.
Commissioner Marta Kos has been explicit that the stated target of 2028 membership remains achievable in principle, provided the reform pace does not slacken. The Commissioner’s reading is also that Podgorica’s window is uniquely open. The political alignment around Western Balkan enlargement has shifted in Montenegro’s favour over the past eighteen months, and the Commission’s own enlargement methodology rewards front-runners with concentrated diplomatic attention. The cadence of bilateral chapter-closing meetings at the Council’s preparatory level reflects that priority.
The technical reality on the ground is more textured. The Trans-European Networks chapter, the most recent closure, requires a track record of regulatory alignment across transport corridor planning, rail interoperability and broadband coverage. The Bar-Boljare highway investment, controversial for its financing structure, was nonetheless part of the file that closed successfully. The Council’s preparatory body accepted the Commission’s assessment that the regulatory framework was in place and that ongoing transposition concerns were no longer a reason to keep the chapter open.
Financial Control, closed in January, was an easier file. It concerns the institutional infrastructure for protecting Union funds against fraud and irregularity, an area where the country’s small administration has been investing heavily to meet pre-accession spending obligations. The closure signals that the audit and reporting architecture can absorb the larger flows that membership would bring.
What remains is the political endgame. Chapters 23 and 24 are not merely about laws on the books. They require demonstrable track records on judicial independence, anti-corruption prosecutions and the operation of the rule of law in practice. The Commission has been clear that this evidence base is what now matters, more than any single statute. Several recent appointments to the prosecutorial system, and the handling of high-profile cases involving former officials, will be closely scrutinised in the next country report. Closure of the two chapters is technically possible by the end of 2027, but everything depends on the pace of substantive case files moving through the courts and the steadiness of the reform majority in Parliament.
