{"id":426753,"date":"2025-05-14T16:54:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T14:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/05\/14\/visita-costa-montenegro-adesione-ue-cpe\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T17:34:59","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T15:34:59","slug":"costa-in-montenegro-impressive-progress-toward-accession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/05\/14\/costa-in-montenegro-impressive-progress-toward-accession\/","title":{"rendered":"Costa in Montenegro: “Impressive progress” toward accession"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Ant\u00f3nio Costa<\/strong>‘s tour of the Western Balkans continues. After touching on Serbia<\/strong> and Bosnia-Herzegovina<\/strong> yesterday, the president of the European Council visits Montenegro\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Kosovo<\/strong> today. In Podgorica, he met with the president of the republic, Jakov Milatovi\u0107<\/strong>, whom he congratulated on the progress on the road to accession<\/strong> to the twelve-star club.<\/p>\n

Podgorica is pulling the sprint toward EU entry<\/strong>. Word of Ant\u00f3nio Costa<\/strong>, who was visiting the Montenegrin capital this morning (May 14). “Montenegro is one of the best examples of the EU’s positive momentum toward enlargement<\/strong>,” said the former Portuguese premier at a joint press conference alongside the head of state, Jakov Milatovi\u0107<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Costa noted that Podgorica is moving at an “impressive” rhythm<\/strong> with the implementation of the\u00a0<\/span>pre-accession reforms<\/strong>, emphasising in particular the “full alignment<\/strong>” with the EU’s common foreign and security policy<\/strong>, CFSP, starting with support for Ukraine. Compared to other candidate countries, Montenegro and Albania are clearly in pole position<\/strong> to join the Union.<\/p>\n

\n

Inspiring to see Montenegro\u2019s progress on its European path.<\/p>\n

Today in Podgorica, I commended President @JakovMilatovic<\/a> and PM @MickeySpajic<\/a> on the country\u2019s ambition, hard work and focus to become an EU member.<\/p>\n

Now is time to make the most of the positive momentum – the pace\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/dKUg5hPpvy<\/a><\/p>\n

– Ant\u00f3nio Costa (@eucopresident)
\nMay 14, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The host cashes in and raises the stakes. The small Balkan country is “proud to be in the lead<\/strong> among those aspiring to European integration,” and the goal,\u00a0already mentioned several times<\/a>, remains “become the 28th member state in 2028<\/strong>.” An ambitious but achievable goal, Milatovi\u0107 argues.<\/p>\n

“A very good slogan,” commented his host, but better yet “get there before”<\/strong>. Costa reiterated that among the essential conditions<\/strong> for joining the Union is respect for the acquis communautaire<\/i><\/strong> (i.e., EU law), as well as institutional stability<\/strong> and good neighbourly relations<\/strong>, both with other countries in the region and with the Twenty-Seven.<\/p>\n

Since yesterday, the president of the European Council has been travelling through the six Western Balkan partners<\/strong>.\u00a0He departed from Belgrade, where he met with Serbian President\u00a0<\/span>Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107<\/strong>\u00a0(<\/span>with\u00a0whom\u00a0he<\/a><\/span>\u00a0was particularly soft<\/a>, although the alignment with the CFSP is decidedly of a different tenor), and the second stop will be in Sarajevo with the leaders of the tripartite presidency of\u00a0<\/span>Bosnia-Herzegovina<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

In these hours, Costa is in Pristina,\u00a0<\/span>Kosovo<\/strong>, where he is scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with President\u00a0<\/span>Vjosa Osmani<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0Tomorrow, he will travel to Skopje, in Northern Macedonia<\/strong>, and then close the tour in Tirana, in Albania<\/strong>, where he will attend the sixth summit<\/a> of the European Political Community<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Second day in the Western Balkans for the president of the European Council, who stops in Podgorica to praise the brisk pace at which the country is pursuing the reforms necessary for EU membership and becoming the “28th member state in 2028” (or even earlier)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":426745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[27175,25836,31228,26619,26030],"class_list":["post-426753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-eu-enlargement-en","tag-yakov-milatovic-en","tag-montenegro-en","tag-western-balkans-en-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426753"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":426759,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426753\/revisions\/426759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}