“The accession of Montenegro and Albania would help the EU to stake its claim to leadership of the liberal democratic world. With Washington bowing out, that’s the best available alternative.”
By Daniel Serwer, @DanielSerwer ,
Washington, 01 June 2026, dtt-net.com / peacefare.net – I enjoyed last week in Montenegro and Albania. They are the front runners in the regatta to join the European Union. Both have now clearly passed Serbia, which has lagged for years. Podgorica and Tirana aim to join by 2030, which requires that they complete their negotiations by the end of next year. The existing EU members need two years to complete their own ratification processes.
I spent last Sunday and Monday in Podgorica. Then Tuesday and Wednesday I was in Budva for the second annual meeting of the Montenegrin Political Scientists Association. The focus of the meeting was democratization and state-building, or more accurately on democratic backsliding and state disintegration, as well as their reversals. Budva, for my non-Balkan readers, is an Adriatic resort town with a beautiful beach and mountain backdrop. It’s too built for my tastes, but spectacular nonetheless.
Montenegro in the final lap
Montenegro has closed all the negotiating chapters of the acquis communautaire, the detailed requirements for EU membership. That concludes the technical part of the process. Now the political part takes precedence. A working group of Member States is drafting the accession treaty. That could include further conditions to satisfy existing EU members, each of which will have to ratify. Montenegro still has issues with Croatia that could cause delay. More important, ratification in France is likely to require a referendum. Who knows what will happen in Germany and the Netherlands, where right-wing populists are strong.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle remaining is the issue of a veto for Montenegro on issues that are not now subject to qualified majority voting in the EU Council. That includes issues like foreign policy, defense, and military missions. Hungary’s veto on those issues bedeviled EU decision-making in recent years, especially on Ukraine and Russia. Existing EU members will hesitate to admit a new member with a population one-tenth that of Hungary wielding a veto.
I didn’t find anyone in Montenegro anxious to hold on to the veto. Montenegro is not joining the EU to enhance its own weight but rather to enjoy the benefits, economic and political, that membership will bring. The problem is how to get rid of the veto. Some smaller member states resist extending qualified majority voting to foreign policy and security issues. A temporary hold on Montenegro’s vote until the issue is resolved might satisfy many.
There is another problem, inside Montenegro. Many of the political scientists who attended the conference are not confident that the conditions for membership are vigorously applied to a government that includes people who not too long ago opposed both NATO and EU membership. And the political scientists were concerned about backsliding in the US and the decline of the liberal world order. They don’t want Montenegro to get into the EU and then join the backsliding.
Albania coming around the bend
Albania is lagging Montenegro. It has opened all the chapters but closed none of them. This month the EU Commission gave it the go ahead to begin closing them. That is a big milestone. Whether it can finish the process by 2028 is not clear. Many people in Albania are concerned that implementation is still lagging, even when the requirements are formally met in legislation and regulation. Others expressed confidence that Tirana would fully qualify by 2028. No one is too worried about the veto issue. Prime Minister Rama is open to some sort of intermediate stage of membership without the veto.
The opposition in Albania is disorganized and fragmented, but nonetheless real. Lots of people volunteer that they dislike the Prime Minister, in office since 2013. Some say he has captured the state. Others that he buys votes. Many bemoan the migration of young people. Some of his political opposition is bent on convincing anyone who will listen that he tolerates, or maybe benefits, from the drug trade. Others think the opposition needs to focus on the real needs of ordinary Albanians. That sounded like the best of the ideas to me.
Both government people and the opposition doubt whether the EU is politically ready to accept Albania as a member state. Ethnic Albanians dominate some cocaine trafficking in Europe, the capital’s real estate boom may be due in part to money-laundering, alternation in power seems far off, and the Albanian judicial system is only recently reformed. Large numbers of Albanians are still migrating away from its improved but still lagging economy and clientelistic politics. No one mentioned, but everyone knows, that Albania’s Muslim plurality also makes some Europeans hesitate about accession.
Why is the EU doing this?
The EU decided to open the possibility of new members after a long delay. Croatia was the last new member in 2013. Many cite Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine as the trigger. Europe wanted to show that it was the master of its own region and could counter Russian inroads. Doing that with the trickier and bigger countries–Serbia, for example, or Ukraine itself–was a bridge too far. Instead, Brussels anted up $6 billion euros for a “growth package” for the Western Balkans and accelerated the process for Montenegro and Albania. They are both relatively small and entirely willing, which is not the case for Serbia. Ukraine is willing but gargantuan and problematic by comparison.
Now the finish line is in sight. The rising tide of geopolitics makes it highly desirable for small countries to join larger pacts. Tirana and Podgorica are already NATO members and cooperate on defense. EU membership would help both to consolidate their Western partnerships and ensure no backsliding.
The Trump Administration won’t help. Its Western Balkans policy statement doesn’t mention EU enlargement. Trump backed Brexit and Orban. He has quarrelled with Germany about Ukraine, France about the Middle East, the UK about the strait of Hormuz, Italy about the Pope, and Denmark about Greenland. Trump dislikes liberal democratic Europe and regards the Union as a competitor. He wants it to fail.
I want it to succeed, because it is a good and fair competitor with which the US has a lot of trade and mutual investment, to the benefit of both sides of the Atlantic. The accession of Montenegro and Albania would help the EU to stake its claim to leadership of the liberal democratic world. With Washington bowing out, that’s the best available alternative.
Daniel Serwer is a Professor of the Practice of Conflict Management as well as director of the Conflict Management and American Foreign Policy Programs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
This opinion of his was published first at his peacefare.net website.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of dtt-net.com.
