Montenegro and Albania: the chapters close faster than the disputes

Montenegro and Albania are negotiating on different clocks. Montenegro has provisionally closed 18 of its 33 chapters and wants to close the rest before the end of 2026, with membership in 2028. Albania closed its first three chapters in July and aims to finish in 2027, with membership by 2030. Both timetables are plausible on the technical work alone. The obstacles left are of a different kind: environmental law that is expensive to apply, rule-of-law reforms that the EU wants to see working rather than adopted, and, in Montenegro's case, bilateral claims from a neighbour inside the Union. None of these moves at the speed of a screening report.

Where Montenegro stands

On 14 July Montenegro closed Chapter 8 on competition policy and Chapter 29 on the customs union, bringing its total to 18. Six of those closures came in 2026 alone. Prime Minister Milojko Spajić said the remaining 15 chapters were all at a final stage, "at around 90%, with some of them at 100%". Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said: "We are in the endgame of the negotiations."

Brussels is organising around that view. According to sources cited by the Montenegrin daily Pobjeda in late August, the Commission and the Irish Council presidency are preparing an accelerated plan: four to five chapters closed at the next intergovernmental conference, all chapters closed by the end of the year and a first draft of the accession treaty by the end of September. A working party to draft the treaty, covering transitional periods, institutional arrangements, financial obligations and safeguard clauses, was formally set up in May.

The arithmetic is still demanding. Montenegro closed six chapters in the first seven months of 2026. Closing 15 in the last five would mean roughly a threefold increase in pace, and the chapters left include the hardest ones.

What still blocks Montenegro

The first obstacle is cost. Chapter 27 on environment and climate change has an estimated implementation bill of about €2.5bn. Its closing benchmark requires Montenegro to designate a scientifically sound list of Natura 2000 sites, including the Ulcinj salt pans and parts of the Tara river canyon. The Pljevlja coal plant supplies 40 to 60 per cent of the country's electricity and does not meet the Industrial Emissions Directive. Recycling is below 2 per cent against a 50 per cent target, and there are about 500 illegal dumpsites. Transition periods can be negotiated, and one has already been secured for waste-water treatment in Ulcinj until 2035. But Thomas Waitz, a Green MEP, put the non-negotiable part plainly: "We want to see the legal protection status."

The second is the rule of law. Chapters 23 and 24, on the judiciary, fundamental rights and justice and home affairs, sit in the fundamentals cluster, which under the current method is opened first and closed last. They are where the EU looks for results rather than laws.

The third is Croatia, and it is the one that can halt the others. At the July conference Zagreb blocked the closure of Chapter 31 on foreign, security and defence policy. It has set six conditions:

• compensation for former Croatian inmates of wartime camps in Montenegro;
• continued searches for 14 people missing since the 1991 war;
• effective prosecution of war crimes;
• settlement of claims over confiscated property of Croatian citizens;
• preservation of the memorial plaque at the former Morinj camp;
• talks on the maritime border and the return of the training ship Jadran.

Croatia says open issues "must be resolved so they do not burden the accession process". Montenegro's foreign ministry says it will address them in an open and good-faith manner with what it calls a friendly country. Some of these items are symbolic and could be settled quickly. The maritime boundary and property claims cannot. Because every provisional closure needs the agreement of all member states, a neighbour with unresolved claims holds leverage at each step, and it grows as the list of chapters shrinks. Brussels has signalled it will become more involved in resolving the dispute so that it does not block the end of the talks.

Where Albania stands

Albania's pace has been fast by any recent standard. It opened the fundamentals cluster on 15 October 2024 and the last cluster, on agriculture and cohesion, on 17 November 2025, so all 33 chapters were open in just over a year. On 26 May 2026 it received a positive interim benchmark assessment on the rule of law, only the second candidate after Montenegro to do so, and closing benchmarks were set for the fundamentals cluster. On 14 July it provisionally closed Chapter 25 on science and research, Chapter 26 on education and culture and Chapter 30 on external relations.

Prime Minister Edi Rama described the May decision as "just the beginning of the end". The Commission supports concluding negotiations by the end of 2027 if reforms continue. That leaves 30 chapters to close in about 17 months.

What still blocks Albania

The chapters Albania has closed are among the lightest in the acquis. What remains includes the whole fundamentals cluster, and the Commission's concerns there are well documented: judicial independence, anti-corruption work, media freedom and, above all, the gap between adopting reforms and implementing them. Kos said the EU expects Albania to intensify its efforts on the rule of law, anti-corruption and transparent governance. The special anti-corruption prosecution, SPAK, was listed among Albania's achievements when the interim benchmarks were confirmed in May. Its results in high-level cases will be read as the test of whether the implementation gap is closing.

What the target dates depend on

For Montenegro, the end-2026 target depends less on its own ministries than on whether the Croatian conditions are separated from the chapter process or folded into it. If they are settled in a parallel, mediated track, the remaining chapters can close on their merits. If they remain attached to each closing, the timetable belongs to Zagreb. For Albania, 2027 depends on showing results in the fundamentals cluster fast enough to keep the Council's confidence while closing some 30 chapters.

In the coming weeks, watch whether Montenegro's next conference closes four or five chapters as planned, and whether Chapter 31 is among them; whether a first draft of the accession treaty appears by the end of September; and whether Croatia and Montenegro announce progress on the maritime boundary or the Jadran. For Albania, the signal is the next set of closures and whether any fundamentals chapter moves before the end of the year. For policymakers in both capitals and in Brussels, the practical lesson is to deal with bilateral claims on their own track and early, before the last chapters turn them into vetoes.

Sources

• European Western Balkans — EU plans to accelerate Montenegro's accession talks
• New Union Post — Montenegro advances its EU accession with 2028 in sight
• Serbian Monitor — Croatia blocks Montenegro in closing Chapter 31 in EU accession negotiations
• New Union Post — Environment is where Montenegro's EU path may be delayed
• European Western Balkans — Albania closes its first three negotiating chapters
• New Union Post — Albania can now begin closing EU negotiating chapters
• European Western Balkans — EU membership in sight for Albania, but ending negotiations by 2027 remains a challenge
• Eunews — Albania opens all EU accession chapters; Kos: 'The coming years will be the moment of truth'