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EU seeks ways to accelerate Western Balkan countries' membership

2026-06-04 19:29:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

The European Union must find ways to accelerate the membership process of the six candidate countries of the Western Balkans, European Council President Antonio Costa called on Thursday.

"For us, enlargement, namely in the Western Balkans, is the most important geopolitical investment that the European Union is making," Costa said during a joint press conference with Serbian President Aleksandar Vu?i? in Belgrade.

Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro have long sought to join the bloc, but have not yet finalized the process.

"Tomorrow European leaders will discuss with Western Balkan leaders how we can improve our methodology to move forward faster and better ," Costa said, stressing that this does not mean the process will become easier.

Costa further added that in order to increase trust between each other, there should not be a sense of frustration from the countries that are joining and also from the EU.

"Enlargement is not a utopia, but it is something that can become a reality in the coming years. We need to work harder and faster for this ," Costa insisted.

The EU-Western Balkans summit is held in Tivat, Montenegro, on Friday and offers leaders an opportunity to assess progress on the path towards EU membership.

EC President Costa has been touring the Western Balkan candidate states ahead of the Tivat summit and, on Thursday, told Serbia's populist president that his administration needed to promote democratic reform while aligning its foreign policy with that of the EU.

Belgrade has already been warned that it could lose around 1.5 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in EU funds if it does not halt democratic backsliding.

Meanwhile, "clashes" among the candidate states themselves threaten to overshadow the summit. On Wednesday, Montenegro barred 87 Serbs from entering the country, saying they posed a security threat. The Serbian nationals had arrived in Tivat on an Air Serbia flight, and security agencies said they were carrying communication equipment and banners reading "Serbia wins."

Following the detention of Serbian citizens, Serbia's Security and Intelligence Agency (BIA) said that a trip to Montenegro poses a high security risk for Vu?i? due to hostile activities of foreign secret services and the presence of a criminal clan there.

Twenty years after separating from the state union with Serbia, Montenegro is seen as one of the Western Balkans' leading candidates for EU membership, but is struggling with corruption along with Belgrade's political influence. /DW