Jutarnji List: European Commission to unveil roadmap tomorrow - Montenegro to close all negotiating chapters by year-end, Accession Treaty expected in June
The European Commission will publish tomorrow, alongside its Enlargement Progress Report, a set of guidelines outlining the timeline and steps for concluding Montenegro’s accession to the European Union. Montenegro is the country that has made the most progress in the process, Jutarnji List has learned.
Jutarnji List has obtained access to a draft of the document, which is due to be adopted tomorrow at a meeting of the European Commission’s College of Commissioners.
According to the European Commission’s plan, Montenegro should close all remaining negotiating chapters by the end of this year. Six chapters are expected to be closed in November and the remaining six in December. Work on drafting the Accession Treaty should be completed in the spring, while June is set as the indicative deadline for signing the treaty.
By that time, the treaty should have been approved by all 27 EU Member States and Montenegro, and translated into all official EU languages as well as Montenegrin. The Commission should also have confirmed Montenegro’s readiness for membership, while the European Parliament should have given its consent.
However, the Commission qualifies the proposed timeline with a disclaimer, noting that the indicative schedule does not prejudge the final outcome, the pace of negotiations or any decision by the Council, the Commission or the European Parliament.
- By their very nature, accession negotiations depend on Montenegro’s progress in meeting the requirements for membership. This indicative timeline does not prejudge either the outcome or the pace of negotiations, nor any decision by the Council, the Commission or the European Parliament - the document states.
Even after the conclusion of accession negotiations, the Commission will continue to monitor Montenegro’s compliance with membership requirements. However, this year’s Progress Report is expected to be Montenegro’s last, as any subsequent assessments, up until accession, would take the form of a “monitoring report”, provided that negotiations have been concluded. In the event of serious backsliding by Montenegro, the postponement of accession could also be used as a measure of last resort. In addition to Montenegro, the European Commission will publish guidelines tomorrow outlining indicative timelines for Albania, Moldova and Ukraine.
For these countries, however, the Commission describes the target dates for concluding negotiations, in Albania’s case, by the end of 2027 - as „their ambition“. The Commission then sets out the proposed deadlines for closing individual negotiating chapters in order to achieve those goals. Albania, which has made the most progress after Montenegro, still has as many as 31 negotiating chapters to close. For this reason, many EU diplomats consider the prospect of concluding its accession negotiations by the end of next year overly ambitious.