Albania and Montenegro will close other chapters in EU accession talks on Tuesday

Albania and Montenegro will close the next chapters in their talks with the European Union for membership in the European bloc, during a conference next Tuesday.

Albania will close three chapters for the first time, namely chapters 25, 26 and 30, while Montenegro will provisionally close two chapters, 8 and 29.

Next Tuesday is known in diplomatic circles as "Super Tuesday," because four intergovernmental conferences will be held that day, temporarily opening or closing negotiation chapters.

In addition to Montenegro and Albania, intergovernmental conferences will also be held with Ukraine and Moldova. On this occasion, these two countries will each open a chapter.

Of all six Western Balkan countries, Albania and Montenegro are considered to have made significant progress on the path to EU membership, and are in active negotiations.

Serbia, North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have candidate country status.

This leaves Kosovo as the only country from the region without candidate country status, some four years after it applied.

Meanwhile, European institutions sought to organize a total of five intergovernmental conferences on the same day, as it was initially hoped that Serbia would also be given the green light to open Chapter 3.

However, there was no agreement among member states to hold the fifth intergovernmental conference, as a large number of them were against unblocking the negotiation process with Serbia.

Montenegro, which is the most advanced candidate country in the European Union accession talks, will have 18 out of a total of 33 negotiation chapters provisionally closed after the next intergovernmental conference.

Ireland, which holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union until December 31 of this year, aims to conclude accession talks with Montenegro during its six-month presidency.

The European Union has now approved the start of drafting the Accession Agreement, which represents the final phase of accession negotiations.

The European Commission has also approved a financial framework for Montenegro, which foresees almost 3.2 billion euros, based on the assumption that the country could become a full member of the European Union in 2028./REL