Tivat enlargement summit: much fanfare, familiar shortfalls
This year’s EU–Western Balkans Summit had everything a high-stakes enlargement moment needs: Macron, Merz, Meloni, von der Leyen and Costa – assembled on the Montenegrin coast for what Podgorica called the most important gathering in its history, coinciding with the twentieth anniversary of its independence. The optics were impeccable. So was the drama: before a single speech was given, Montenegro had turned back 87 Serbian nationals at Tivat airport.
The EU keeps staging enlargement as a success story. The region keeps staging it as a drama. Tivat was no exception.
What the summit did produce was a powerful show of support for Montenegro’s accession. That matters. But it also exposed the contradiction at the heart of today’s enlargement debate: while the geopolitical rhetoric grows more urgent, delivery remains painfully slow. Montenegro would be the first country to join the EU since Croatia in 2013 – more than two decades after Thessaloniki promised the whole region a European future.
Meanwhile, the Franco-German non-paper on “structured gradual integration” dominated the summit debate. It is only the latest in a long line of initiatives that promise to accelerate integration without substituting for membership. The reassurances are consistent. But so is the wait. With a war on Europe’s borders, geopolitical competition intensifying, reforms stalling and the Growth Plan already underdelivering, the proliferation of interim solutions sends its own message: for most candidates, full membership remains as distant as ever. If enlargement quietly fragments, the EU's credibility – and its word – fragments with it.
Corina Stratulat is Associate Director and Head of the European Politics and Institutions Programme.
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