The Progress, Prospects and Risks of EU Enlargement

EU enlargement is likely to make incremental progress over the next one to two years, driven by the bloc's geopolitical imperative to strengthen European security, but the pace of accession for Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova will remain constrained by demanding reform requirements and the need for unanimous approval from all EU member states at each major stage of the process. On July 14, the European Union held a series of intergovernmental accession conferences in Brussels that advanced the membership negotiations of four candidate countries. Montenegro provisionally closed two additional negotiating chapters -- Chapter 8 (Competition Policy) and Chapter 29 (Customs Union) -- bringing its total number of provisionally closed chapters to 18. Albania provisionally closed its first three negotiating chapters: Chapter 25 (Science and Research), Chapter 26 (Education and Culture) and Chapter 30 (External Relations). Ukraine and Moldova each opened negotiations on Cluster 6 (External Relations), covering Chapter 30...