{"id":448745,"date":"2026-03-26T11:28:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T10:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/03\/26\/montenegro-e-islanda-potrebbero-diventare-insieme-il-ventottesimo-stato-dellunione\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T12:04:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T11:04:55","slug":"montenegro-and-iceland-could-together-become-the-eus-28th-member-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/03\/26\/montenegro-and-iceland-could-together-become-the-eus-28th-member-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Montenegro and Iceland \u201ccould together become the EU\u2019s 28th member state\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 The more, the merrier. For Montenegro\u2019s ambassador to the European Union, Petar Markovi\u0107<\/b>, the possibility of Iceland joining the ranks of EU candidate countries is not a problem \u2013 quite the contrary. \u201cWe can share 28th place. At<\/strong> the moment, we have closed more chapters than Iceland, and we expect to close others before their referendum on accession<\/b>, so that the race becomes equally interesting for both of us,\u201d the ambassador said speaking to The New Union Post,<\/i> in the wake of the 26th Accession Conference, which confirmed the provisional <\/em><\/u>conclusion of another <\/em><\/u>chapter in the negotiations.<\/a><\/p>\n

According to The Union Post, if the August 29 referendum<\/a> reopens EU accession negotiations, <\/em> Iceland could quickly overtake Montenegro as the favourite to become the next member state<\/b>. <\/p>\n

Markovi\u0107 takes stock of Podgorica\u2019s recent progress, the challenges ahead, and the next steps needed to achieve the goal of closing all chapters by the end of the year. At the same time, he emphasises that \u201cany good news for the other candidates,\u201d whether they are in negotiations, potential candidates, or on hold,<\/b> \u201cis good news\u201d for the EU\u2019s overall enlargement policy<\/b>. \u201cJust as we have never envied the progress of Ukraine or Moldova, we do not envy the sudden prospect of Iceland joining the race,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

 Currently,<\/a> Montenegro has provisionally closed 14 out of 33 chapters. Iceland would resume from the 12 chapters it had closed prior to 2013 if accession negotiations were reopened. According to Markovi\u0107, it is not impossible that Montenegro and Iceland could join the EU \u201ctogether, or within a very short time of one another.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New Union Post\u2019s interview with Petar Markovi\u0107, the Balkan country\u2019s ambassador to the European Union<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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","show_comment_section":"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":[26024,33535,26619],"class_list":["post-448745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-adesione-en","tag-islanda-unione-europea","tag-montenegro-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448745","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448745"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":448746,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448745\/revisions\/448746"}],"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=448745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}