“Many of them [the chapters] are very technical and require every member state to carry out extensive internal consultations. So there is a will to make progress. We are absolutely certain of that, and we have certainly been pushing an ambitious agenda in terms of securing approval, but I think we simply ran out of time to get the job done.”
Diplomatic sources, however, say the reasons are not purely technical. According to unofficial information, the Netherlands asked for a pause in Montenegro’s further integration, calling for additional scrutiny and more consistent compliance with EU standards, and its initiative was backed by Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. The trigger for that reluctance, sources say, was the conduct of certain Montenegrin politicians following Mladic’s death.
Montenegrin parliament speaker Andrija Mandic sent condolences over the death of Ratko Mladic, a gesture the Croatian government publicly condemned as “unacceptable and contrary to the values on which the European Union is built.” Croatia, as an EU member, holds veto power over the opening and closing of chapters, and it has been blocking chapter 31, on foreign, security and defense policy, since 2024 over a string of unresolved bilateral issues: the maritime border, ownership of the training ship Jadran, war reparations and people missing since the wars of the 1990s, the status of the Croatian community in Montenegro, and a 2024 resolution by Montenegro’s parliament on the Jasenovac, Dachau and Mauthausen camps, which Zagreb called politically motivated at the time.
Montenegro’s chief negotiator, Predrag Zenovic, said in early September that despite the open issues, Croatia had not blocked the entire process, and that it supported the closing of 14 other chapters after a positive rule of law report. He said he expects intensive talks with Zagreb to eventually allow chapter 31 to close as well.
For Serbia, the episode is a small scale rehearsal of what lies ahead. Since the European Commission introduced information gains as a benchmark, and given that attitudes toward war criminals remain a sensitive issue in Serbian public life too, Montenegro’s case shows that Brussels weighs political symbolism just as strictly as technical criteria, regardless of how many chapters are formally ready to close. Podgorica still expects to close its remaining 15 chapters by the end of December, to finalize its accession treaty in the first half of 2027, and to become a member in 2028.