The European Commission published its annual report on EU enlargement today. It noted significant progress by Moldova and Ukraine, despite external pressure and war.
At the same time, Montenegro remains the closest to membership: the European Commission believes it can conclude accession negotiations by the end of 2026.
This is reported by a Babel correspondent in Brussels, citing official European Commission documents included in the Enlargement Package and a conversation with a high-ranking EU diplomat familiar with the matter.
The Enlargement Report contains assessments of reforms in each of the ten countries and recommendations for further EU enlargement. New to this yearʼs document are roadmaps for Moldova, Ukraine, Montenegro and Albania with further steps for 2027.
A special emphasis in the report is devoted to the contribution of candidate countries to European security. Of particular importance is Ukraine, with which cooperation in the field of security and defence has significantly deepened after the full-scale Russian invasion.
Overall, EU enlargement is moving forward more actively than at any time in the past 15 years, an EU diplomat notes. A record number of intergovernmental conferences have been held with Montenegro, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine. At the same time, progress in other countries remains slow or non-existent.
Among the countries that have advanced the most:
- Montenegro remains the leader of the negotiation process. It has opened all 33 negotiation chapters and provisionally closed 21. The European Commission believes that the country has fulfilled all conditions for closing the remaining chapters, and the negotiations could be concluded as early as December 2026. If the process goes according to plan, the accession agreement could be signed in June 2027. After that, it still needs to be ratified by all EU member states and Montenegro itself.
- Albania opened all negotiation clusters in just over a year and has provisionally closed four chapters. The European Commission is proposing a timetable for the country to complete negotiations by the end of 2027. At the same time, it needs to maintain the pace of reforms, ensure their quality and meet all conditions, especially in the area of the rule of law. The political situation is affected by large-scale protests and confrontation between the government and the opposition.
- Moldova has made significant progress in 2026. It has made progress in aligning its legislation with EU norms, judicial reform, and the fight against corruption and organised crime. The European Commission notes significant progress in fulfilling the interim conditions on the rule of law (IBAR). The government aims to provisionally conclude the negotiations by early 2028. The European Commission considers this target to be ambitious but achievable if the country maintains the current pace of reforms.
- Ukraine is making progress in the negotiations, despite a full-scale war. At the same time, in order to complete the negotiations by the end of 2028, the country needs to accelerate reforms. This primarily concerns the judiciary, the fight against corruption, the protection of fundamental rights, and public administration reform.
The situation is mixed among other candidate countries. Serbia made no progress in the negotiations during the reporting period. The European Commission also draws attention to political polarization, pressure on civil society and the low level of alignment of the countryʼs foreign policy with the EU position.
North Macedonia has yet to fulfill its obligations regarding constitutional changes that would include Bulgarians among the peoples represented in the Constitution. At the same time, the country is stepping up its reforms under the Western Balkans Growth Plan.
Bosnia and Herzegovina has not made sufficient progress to move to the next stage of accession. It needs to adopt key laws on the judiciary and appoint a fully-fledged chief negotiator. Once these conditions are met, the European Commission is ready to present a negotiating framework and launch the first intergovernmental conference.
In Georgia, the accession process has effectively stalled due to deteriorating democratic standards and lack of progress in reforms.
Negotiations with Turkey have remained frozen since 2018. Over the past year, the situation with democracy, fundamental rights and the rule of law there has further deteriorated.
Ukraineʼs path to the EU
Ukraine intensified cooperation with the EU in 2014, after the victory of the Revolution of Dignity. In the same year, the Verkhovna Rada and the European Parliament simultaneously approved the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU.
It entered into full force on September 1, 2017. Ukraineʼs path to membership in the European Union and NATO was enshrined in the Constitution in February 2019.
On February 28, 2022, Ukraine applied for membership in the European Union. On June 17, the European Commission recommended granting Ukraine candidate status for EU membership and set out a number of conditions that the country must meet before starting negotiations on EU membership.
On June 23, EU leaders gathered in Brussels for a summit, where they granted Ukraine candidate status.
In late 2023, the European Union allowed negotiations to begin. They were formally scheduled to start in 2024, but the process was blocked by Hungary under Viktor Orban. After a change of government in Hungary, the country lifted its 17-month veto on Ukraine’s EU accession in June 2026.
However, within weeks, Hungary threatened to block Ukraine’s EU accession if Kyiv did not implement an agreement on the rights of Hungarians in Transcarpathia.
On October 12, the Verkhovna Rada adopted in two readings the law on education in the languages of national minorities and indigenous peoples, and President Volodymyr Zelensky signed it.
After that, on October 13, the EU Council officially opened two more negotiation clusters for Ukraine on joining the European Union — “Internal Market” and “Competitiveness and Inclusive Growth”. In total, four out of six clusters have been opened so far. The previous two were opened in June (“Fundamentals”) and July (“External Relations”).
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