European leaders gathered Friday in Tivat, a coastal resort in the small Adriatic nation of Montenegro, for a summit aimed at reassuring six Western Balkan countries that EU membership remains a genuine prospect — not a distant promise. European Council President António Costa set the tone ahead of the meeting, declaring in Sarajevo that the EU's commitment to the region was "as real as the opportunity for enlargement" and framing the accession process as a "geostrategic interest for Europe" amid growing Russian and Chinese influence in the region.
The summit's most substantive policy development came from a joint Franco-German proposal calling for "structured gradual integration" — a new pathway that would allow candidate countries to access tangible benefits before formally joining the bloc. The paper, co-signed by Paris and Berlin and confirmed by Costa as the basis for discussions, envisions a series of tailored building blocks for each candidate country: privileged access to the EU single market, observer status in EU decision-making bodies, joint parliamentary committees, and participation in informal Council meetings without voting rights. Crucially, the proposal stresses that progress would be reversible in cases of backsliding on EU core values. France and Germany have asked the European Commission to translate the concept into concrete measures, framing it as a way to reward reform momentum rather than procedural box-ticking.
On practical integration, EU leaders rubber-stamped a decision to begin negotiations on eliminating mobile roaming charges between the EU and Western Balkan countries — an extension of the bloc's popular "roam like at home" scheme, which allows travellers to use their phones without extra charges. Several Balkan countries have already joined the Single Euro Payments Area, and officials described these steps as part of a wider strategy of weaving the region into the EU single market ahead of formal accession. Officials cautioned against expecting major membership announcements, emphasising instead the summit's focus on tangible improvements to citizens' lives.
The gathering was not without drama. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, whose attendance had been in doubt after Serbia's intelligence service warned of security threats linked to alleged organised crime figures in Montenegro, ultimately travelled to Tivat following what he described as a personal commitment to EU leaders. The day before the summit, Montenegrin authorities blocked 87 Serbian nationals from entering the country, citing security grounds — a move that prompted Serbian border police to impose tightened controls on Montenegrin citizens in apparent retaliation. The European Commission said it was monitoring the border situation and called for a return to normal procedures.
The wider stakes of the summit were sharpened by the rapid progress of Ukraine and Moldova through the EU accession process, fast-tracked to candidate status after Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. EU institutions are acutely aware of the risk that Western Balkan countries — some of which have been in the accession queue for two decades — feel sidelined. Montenegro is the most advanced of the six, with technical work on its accession treaty already under way; Albania is seen as the next likely candidate. North Macedonia, Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina face political obstacles, while Serbia, under Vučić, is widely perceived as drifting from the EU orbit. As one Brussels-based researcher noted, Russia's war in Ukraine "has singlehandedly reframed what European enlargement is meant to be and what it is for" — turning a values-driven process into an urgent question of continental security.