Brussels (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – On Jan. 14, 2025 Marta Kos, EU Commissioner for Enlargement, met with MEPs on the Foreign Affairs Committee to discuss pending EU memberships.
In her first meeting since she took office on December 1, 2024, Marta Kos met with MEPs to discuss the next steps of EU enlargement. In her opening statement, she expressed enthusiasm on the possibility of bringing up to three countries to the finish line during her mandate.
Kos particularly recognized the “great efforts” of Moldova and Ukraine to adapt to the EU criteria to join the Union. However, their reforms have to be sustainable. “There will be no geopolitical discount,” she said. “The enlargement process remains merit-based.”
Depending on support from the EU Council and Ukraine and Moldova’s ability to deliver, it is possible that both candidates will open the 1st cluster of Fundamentals and the 31st chapter in 2025. This means opening talks on the Fundamentals of the Accession Process (which includes democracy, justice and freedom) and foreign, security and defense policy.
For the time being, Montenegro and Albania are the two “front runners.” They aim to end the negotiation process by, respectively, the end of 2026 and 2027. “We will support them in this vision, but of course this is hard work,” Kos commented.
EU checklist: stable democracy, free market and rule of law
The so-called “Copenhagen criteria,” established by the European Council in 1993, require countries who wish to join the EU to adhere to democratic values, respect the rule of law and human rights. They demand stable democratic institutions and a competitive economy, meaning also the ability to implement the political and economic obligations of the membership.
As a country applies, the Commission checks on the Copenhagen criteria and all EU member states have to agree for negotiations to start. Then, 35 policy fields – known as “chapters” – are discussed and political and economic adjustments are required to make the membership work. All the chapters need to be closed to proceed with the last steps of the admission. The last country to join the EU was Croatia in 2013 .
As of today, ten countries are on the “waiting list”: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North-Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine and Turkey.
While Kosovo’s application is still pending, all the other countries have been accepted as official candidates. Negotiations with Turkey were suspended in 2018 due to concerns on the rule of law and media freedom.
Montenegro and Albania might join the EU by 2029
Montenegro and Albania became official candidates in, respectively, 2010 and 2014 and are now the closest one to the finish line.
The accession negotiations with Montenegro started in 2012 and, as of the end of 2024, 33 of the 35 chapters have been opened. Three of them (number 25, 26 and 30) have been provisionally closed. According to the 2024 report, Montenegro showed significant progress, although “the country and its institutions are fragile and vulnerable to political crisis.”
Albania officially started the negotiation talks in 2018. At the time, the Commission recommended the country to work on specific areas, including the judiciary, fight against corruption and organized crime, intelligence service and public administration. In June 2022 it started the screening process and, according to the latest report, Albania is “moderately prepared” on most of the issues reviewed so far.
Alberico Gambino, MEP from the European Conservatives and Reformists group, commented that such progress is a positive sign for the future of the Balkan region, but he also asked the Commission to keep a close eye on possible interference in the upcoming elections in Albania, scheduled for May 11, 2025.
EU Commission goals on enlargement
Commissioner Kos emphasized that the enlargement process involves both sides. While on one hand the candidates need to meet certain standards, on the other the Union has to be supportive. “If the countries deliver, they should be able to join.”
She stressed how the value of the EU goes beyond facts and figures and on how “it needs to resonate with the heart.” In her view, culture and sports are powerful tools to unite people across borders, which is why the Commission is already discussing the possibility of a football match between a team of candidate countries and one of the member states, she said.
Adding countries to the Union is not only an economic and political process. “It is a shared vision that inspires and unites all Europeans,” she explained, “just as it inspired so many of us in the early 2000s, when our countries returned home to Europe.”
