European Commission will publish roadmaps for four frontrunners — Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine, Moldova

The European Commission has approved a package of pre-accession assessments that will be used to adjust enlargement policies and procedures, and confirmed it will publish roadmaps for four frontrunner candidate countries — Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova — after the enlargement reports are released.

Roadmaps, timing and purpose

“In the enlargement reports at the end of October, on 28 October, we intend to publish roadmaps for these countries. We want to help them sustain reform progress, and those roadmaps will set out the next steps,” the Commissioner said after the college meeting.

Commissioner Marta Kos stressed the roadmaps are not meant to demotivate other candidate states but to serve as an inspiration. She argued that the designation of frontrunners recognises tangible delivery, sometimes under very difficult conditions.

“Naming these frontrunners means they have delivered, and some of them under very difficult conditions. For many years we heard that we in the EU had forgotten the Western Balkans; two of the frontrunners are from the Western Balkans and they can motivate all the others,” Kos said.

Alongside the roadmaps announcement, the Commission signalled plans to press for changes in how decisions are made in the Union: replacing the unanimity principle with qualified majority voting in several key areas, including energy and the adoption of sanctions.

The package also recommends abandoning unanimity in the enlargement process itself. For opening negotiations and chapters, the Commission proposes using qualified majority voting — which in practice would mean agreement by 15 of the 27 member states.

The measures were presented by the Commission after its college session; the package is intended to help sustain reform momentum in candidate countries and to speed up some internal EU decision-making procedures.

Photo: press material from the event