Brussels and Podgorica down to the details: EU-Western Balkans summit June 5 in Tivat
Council President Antonio Costa and Montenegrin President Jakov Milatovic have closed the participant list for the Tivat summit, where formal confirmation of Montenegro's progress and a review of commitments by Serbia, North Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Kosovo are expected.
Brussels and Podgorica have completed preparations down to the details for the European Union-Western Balkans summit to be held on June 5 in Tivat, with formal invitations sent by European Council President Antonio Costa and Montenegrin President Jakov Milatovic. The programme includes a plenary session devoted to the progress of integration and the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, and a working lunch on enlargement policy, key challenges and opportunities, and alignment with European policies and standards, the official EU-Western Balkans summit website states.
For Serbia, this is the fifth summit of this format President Aleksandar Vucic will attend with the same structural message: that Serbia is “a reliable and responsible partner” for Brussels, formulations he also used after the May 17 working dinner with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels. According to the President’s office, the Serbian delegation in Tivat will include, besides Vucic, European Integration Minister Tanja Miscevic and Foreign Minister Marko Djuric. The main item Belgrade will track is how the Declaration on regional progress will be worded, particularly the part on the Belgrade-Pristina internal dialogue.
The main priority of Montenegro’s 2026 chairmanship is “Strengthening security and stability together,” the preparatory statement says. Podgorica is using the Tivat summit to publicly confirm its status as the frontrunner for the next EU membership, with the closing of negotiation chapters possibly concluded in Q1 2027. Montenegro and Albania, as the Brussels-based Atlantic Council notes, have so far “shown a serious step forward in the accession process, while the rest of the region has lagged due to political crises and structural problems.”
Five candidates, five different positions
Serbia comes to the Tivat summit under pressure from two directions: that Brussels welcome concrete reforms in the judiciary and the media, recognised as a test of implementing assumed obligations, and that the dialogue with Pristina gain new dynamics through the working plan formally endorsed in May by the EU Special Representative Peter Sorensen. Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos in March rejected a joint Vucic-Edi Rama proposal for an accelerated European integration formula for individual candidates, a theme the two leaders are likely to return to in Tivat.
North Macedonia comes with an open constitutional issue tied to its bilateral dispute with Bulgaria. Albania in the past year showed good results in opening negotiation clusters. Bosnia and Herzegovina is in the combined candidate status, awaiting fulfilment of 14 key priorities. Kosovo retains the status of a potential candidate, with the visa liberalisation process postponed after Brussels eased measures last October.
Florian Bieber, professor of southeast Europe at the University of Graz and coordinator of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG), wrote in a brief piece for the European Western Balkans portal that the Tivat summit “will not be revolutionary, but will give Brussels an opportunity to confirm political credit for those who have delivered results and to send precise signals to those who have not.” In his reading, the main risk is that the summit, like its predecessors, stays at the level of general formulations on the region’s importance, without concrete dates for unlocking individual negotiation chapters.
Brussels and Berlin cautious, Paris in crisis
The European Commission is not expected to formally open a new negotiation chapter with Serbia before the June 5 summit, but talks are ongoing on preparing the cluster covering the free movement of workers. Commissioner Marta Kos told reporters in Brussels that the Commission “is carefully observing the reform pace in all candidate countries,” language read in Brussels diplomatic jargon as the absence of a clear policy of accelerated chapter opening at a time when the German government is focused on domestic issues and the French crisis has stalled Paris’s key positions in the Council of the EU.
Berlin, through Merz’s government, signalled that continuing the enlargement process is “a strategic obligation, not a discretionary one,” but German diplomats in Brussels kept caution on dates. Paris, which under normal circumstances would, with The Hague and the Netherlands, form a coalitional counterweight to fast enlargement, is currently preoccupied with an internal dispute over the 2026 budget.
The next concrete date is the plenary part of the summit on June 5 in Tivat, beginning at 9 a.m. Central European Time. A press conference at the close of the summit is scheduled for 1 p.m., followed by a working lunch at which Antonio Costa, Ursula von der Leyen and Jakov Milatovic will finalise the conclusions to be released as a joint communique.
