Issue 2 · Sunday, 5 July 2026

EU Candidates Weekly Brief

This was a quieter week, with one verified development: the Commission set out the budget terms that would apply to Montenegro once it joins the EU. On our own site, Serbia’s membership estimate moved about ten months later after we corrected our record to show it has opened two negotiating clusters rather than four.

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This week

Montenegro · 30 June 2026

Commission presents the financial package for Montenegro

On 30 June 2026 the European Commission adopted a financial package that sets out the budget arrangements that would apply to Montenegro once it joins the EU. It falls under chapter 33, financial and budgetary provisions, and covers Montenegro’s future role as a contributor to and a beneficiary of the EU budget. This is a Commission step toward closing chapter 33. The chapter is not closed yet, and Montenegro stays at 16 of its 33 chapters provisionally closed. The Commission’s page states no euro figure, so we do not give one.

European Commission ↗

The forecast

Montenegromost advanced
most likely 2031
2028 to 2034
Albania
most likely 2032
2029 to 2036
Moldova
most likely 2033
2029 to 2037
Ukraine
most likely 2033
2029 to openwar
Serbia
most likely 2037
2031 to openstalled
North Macedonia
most likely 2037
2031 to openstalled

Each bar spans the earliest to the latest estimate, with the most likely year marked in blue. A bar that fades on the right has no firm upper bound, because of war or a political standstill. The scale starts at 2028.

Not on the clock

Bosnia and Herzegovina. Candidate since December 2022. Negotiations have not formally opened: no negotiating framework adopted, no first conference held.
Georgia. Candidate since December 2023. The accession process is on hold over concerns about democratic backsliding.
Turkiye. Negotiations opened in 2005 but have been frozen since 2018, with no chapters moving.
Kosovo. Applied in December 2022. A potential candidate, candidate status not yet granted.

What we are watching

Ukraine and Moldova could open more negotiation clusters around the middle of July. No Council or Commission text confirms a date, and the Irish presidency has spoken only of one or perhaps two clusters before the summer break. We are holding this until a primary source confirms it.
Serbia. President Vucic said on 27 June that he would resign and call early elections within weeks. We have not seen an EU institutional source respond, and no date is set, so we treat this as press reporting and not yet as data. We will record it when it happens or when an EU source reacts.
Kosovo. A 30 June reform step under the Reform and Growth Facility passed without a published Commission assessment. The Commission has said an assessment will follow later in the month. We record nothing until it publishes.