Montenegro's last fifteen chapters now turn on Croatia, not on the acquis

Ursula von der Leyen spent 30 September to 2 October in the Western Balkans, her sixth annual tour, and the itinerary was the message. The Commission said on 29 September that she would visit Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro and North Macedonia, and that Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were being left for later "in light of the upcoming parliamentary and general elections" in both. Of the four she did visit, only two are negotiating in any live sense, and the obstacle in front of the frontrunner is no longer the acquis. It is Croatia.

Montenegro is moving, and Zagreb is holding the brake

Montenegro has provisionally closed 18 of its 33 chapters and wants the remaining 15 done in time to join in 2028. An intergovernmental conference that would have closed more was called off. Euronews reported on 24 September that the conference scheduled for that Tuesday was postponed because of Croatian objections, and that Zagreb is blocking closure of transport policy (Chapter 14), foreign and security policy, and the two rule-of-law chapters, 23 and 24.

The Croatian file is not an acquis file. On Euronews's account it covers war crimes prosecutions and 14 people still unaccounted for from the Croatian war of independence, compensation for survivors of wartime detention camps, outstanding property claims by Croatian families in Montenegro, the maritime boundary, and the return of the training ship Jadran. A bilateral meeting was expected in Zagreb in early October, with a further intergovernmental conference pencilled in for 12–13 October if it produced anything. Marjan Sarec, a member of the European Parliament, told Euronews that "Montenegro should not become the victim of bilateral issues. Bilateral issues can be resolved after entering." That is not the Council's practice, and Croatia holds a veto at every conference.

The Commission has begun treating the bilateral track as its own business rather than Podgorica's. Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos went to Montenegro on 30 September for the Berlin Process meeting of foreign ministers and, according to the Commission's own notice, joined Croatian and Montenegrin officials at the site of the former Morinj detention camp to honour Croatian prisoners of war, stressing "the importance of remembrance and reconciliation in building a common European future". Croatia's foreign minister, Gordan Grlic-Radman, was at the ministerial. Morinj is one of the items on Croatia's list. A commemoration is not a closed chapter, but it is the Commission putting its own weight behind a dispute it cannot arbitrate.

A second Montenegrin constraint is more technical and less discussed. Euronews reported on 1 October that the Commission doubts Montenegro can translate the acquis into Montenegrin in time; the negotiating framework requires translations "into its official language in good time before accession", and EU law has grown substantially since Croatia joined in 2013. The options under examination include a temporary derogation, of the kind Malta received after 2004, or interim use of Croatian. Both are politically awkward in a country that spent years establishing Montenegrin as a language distinct from Serbian, and the second runs back into Zagreb.

Albania is about to be given a date

Albania has opened all 33 chapters and closed three. The Commission confirmed on 14 July that chapters 25, 26 and 30 — science and research, education and culture, and external relations — were provisionally closed, after the May 2026 accession conference found Albania had met the interim benchmarks on Cluster 1, the fundamentals, which is what unlocked closing at all.

What comes next is new in kind. Euronews reported on 23 September that the Commission is preparing to endorse formally Tirana's target of finishing negotiations by the end of 2027, through accession roadmaps to be published with the annual enlargement package in late October. Enlargement has traditionally avoided dates in order to protect the merit principle; Kos framed the shift as a function of proximity, saying "the more the country is coming towards the end of the technical part of the accession, the more we can say about it", and von der Leyen has argued the roadmaps give candidates a clearer sense of direction. On the reporting available, the roadmaps cover Montenegro and Albania on the Balkan track, alongside Moldova and Ukraine. No roadmap is expected for North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia or Serbia.

North Macedonia is stuck on a condition that is not about reform

Skopje was von der Leyen's last stop, and the subject was the same one as in July. North Macedonia committed in 2022, under the French proposal, to amend its constitution to recognise Bulgarians among the country's communities; that amendment remains the precondition for opening the first cluster. Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski will not move without guarantees that Bulgaria would not raise fresh objections afterwards. BIRN reported on 8 July that Kos answered this directly: "EU enlargement is not built on guarantees given in advance. It is built on trust, commitments, dedication, fulfilling those commitments, and hard work." The amendment needs a two-thirds majority in parliament, which the government does not have.

Kosovo's position is lower still. It remains a potential candidate rather than a candidate, and von der Leyen's visit to Pristina produced encouragement rather than a procedural step.

The money follows the same split

The €6 billion Reform and Growth Facility for 2024–2027 — €2 billion in grants and €4 billion in concessional loans — pays against completed reform milestones, with pre-financing of up to 7 per cent of a beneficiary's allocation available up front. The Commission's own record of releases lists Montenegro and North Macedonia in July 2025, Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia in October 2025, Serbia in January 2026, and Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia again in May 2026, under an implementing decision of 20 May. It lists no release for Kosovo, whose reform agenda was approved in October 2024, and none for Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose agenda was only approved in December 2025. With the facility running to 2027, the instrument designed to pull the laggards forward has so far paid the countries that were already moving.

What to watch

• Whether the Zagreb bilateral meeting unblocks the postponed intergovernmental conference in time for the 12–13 October date, and whether chapters 23 and 24 move with it.
• Whether the late-October enlargement package names an end-2027 completion date for Albania and a 2028 accession date for Montenegro, and in what language.
• Whether the Commission offers Montenegro a translation derogation, and whether Croatian is part of the arrangement.
• Whether Kosovo or Bosnia and Herzegovina record a first reform-based payment before the facility expires in 2027.

Montenegro's negotiations are now limited less by its own statute book than by a neighbour's list of grievances, and Albania's by a calendar Brussels is about to write down. For the other three, the 2026 package will restate conditions set years ago.

Sources

• European Commission — President von der Leyen heads to the Western Balkans as EU accession preparations continue
• European Commission — Commissioner Kos travels to Montenegro for the Berlin Process Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Morinj commemoration
• European Commission — Enlargement: Albania and EU provisionally close negotiations on science and research, education and culture, and external relations
• European Commission — Growth Plan for the Western Balkans
• European Commission — Commission Implementing Decision of 20.05.2026 approving the release of funds to Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia under the Reform and Growth Facility for the Western Balkans
• Euronews — Montenegro's EU accession bid faces race against time to solve bilateral issues with Croatia
• Euronews — Lost in translation: Montenegro's EU accession faces a language barrier
• Euronews — EU Commission poised to formally back Albania's 2027 accession deadline
• Balkan Insight — EU Presses North Macedonia to Alter Constitution to Aid Membership Bid
• Balkan Insight — Montenegro Moves Nearer to EU Goal, Closing Two More Accession Chapters