Today, the EU and Montenegro provisionally closed accession negotiations on free movement of goods (chapter 1) and food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy (chapter 12).
| “I strongly welcome the progress made today at the third Intergovernmental Conference for Montenegro held under the Irish presidency, where we provisionally closed two more negotiating chapters. With 23 negotiating chapters now provisionally closed, Montenegro is making significant progress towards the closure of all remaining chapters. Enlargement is a geopolitical necessity for the EU, and the Irish presidency is prioritising this agenda. This week the Commission’s enlargement report considered that accession negotiations with Montenegro could realistically be closed by the end of the year, once the necessary reforms have been implemented by Montenegro. Today’s progress continues this momentum for Montenegro’s EU accession.” |
| — Thomas Byrne, Minister of State for European affairs and defence of Ireland, on behalf of the Irish presidency of the Council of the EU |
These provisional closures follow on the heels of the previous accession conference on 12 October 2026, which provisionally closed chapters 17 on economic and monetary policy, 18 on statistics and 19 on social policy and employment. Monitoring of progress in the alignment with and implementation of the EU acquis will continue throughout the negotiations.
Montenegro has opened all 33 negotiating chapters in its EU accession negotiations. With today’s closures, a total of twenty-three of these chapters have now been provisionally closed. According to the negotiating principles endorsed by the Accession Conference, agreements reached in the course of negotiations on specific chapters may not be considered as final until an overall agreement has been reached for all chapters.
The EU may, if necessary, return to these chapters at an appropriate moment.
- EU common position regarding chapter 1
- EU common position regarding chapter 12
- 29th Accession Conference with Montenegro, 12 October 2026
- Council conclusions on enlargement, 17 December 2024
- Enlargement: new enlargement methodology will be applied to Montenegro and Serbia (press release, 11 May 2021)
- Montenegro (background information)
- How EU enlargement works (background information)
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