Brussels is preparing more detailed paths towards membership for Albania, Montenegro, Moldova and Ukraine, highlighting how sharply North Macedonia’s EU trajectory has diverged from that of Albania four years after the two Balkan neighbours formally began accession negotiations together.
BRUSSELS, Sept 28 (BalkanView) – The European Union is preparing individual accession roadmaps for four of its most advanced candidate countries, a move that could create a clearer group of frontrunners while leaving North Macedonia outside the bloc’s emerging fast lane.
The European Commission is drawing up plans for Albania, Montenegro, Moldova and Ukraine that would set out priority reforms, measurable targets and indicative timelines for completing key stages of accession negotiations, according to officials cited in European media reports.
The roadmaps would not guarantee membership by a fixed date.
Accession would remain conditional on reforms, compliance with EU rules and the approval of member states. But the initiative could make the process more predictable for countries Brussels believes have built sufficient momentum to move towards the final stages of negotiations.
For the Western Balkans, the most striking comparison is between Albania and North Macedonia.
The two countries formally launched accession negotiations on the same day in July 2022 after years in which their EU paths had been politically linked.
Four years later, they are moving at markedly different speeds.
Albania moves into the leading group
Albania has opened negotiations on all 33 chapters of EU legislation and in July provisionally closed its first three – science and research, education and culture, and external relations.
That followed an EU assessment in May that Tirana had met the interim benchmarks under the crucial Fundamentals cluster, covering areas including democratic institutions, public administration, the rule of law and economic criteria.
Albania is seeking to complete accession negotiations by the end of 2027.
The roadmap now being prepared would not guarantee that target. But it could provide a clearer sequence of reforms and milestones showing what Albania must achieve to get there.
Montenegro is further ahead.
It has opened all 33 negotiating chapters and had provisionally closed 18 by July. EU officials describe it as the frontrunner in the current enlargement process, and work has already begun within the Council on preparations for drafting an eventual accession treaty.
Podgorica aims to complete negotiations by the end of 2026.
Together, Albania and Montenegro have therefore emerged as the Western Balkan members of a four-country leading group that also includes Moldova and Ukraine.
North Macedonia misses the new group
North Macedonia is absent from the reported roadmap initiative.
That does not mean its candidacy has been suspended or that Brussels has formally excluded it from future membership.
But its absence illustrates how dramatically its position has changed.
North Macedonia became an EU candidate in 2005 and for years appeared to be ahead of Albania. Both countries formally opened accession negotiations in July 2022.
Albania subsequently moved forward independently.
North Macedonia has yet to move into the next phase requiring the opening of negotiating clusters because of an unresolved condition linked to constitutional amendments.
Under the framework agreed with the EU, Skopje is expected to amend its constitution to include Bulgarians and several other communities before that phase can proceed.
Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski’s government has resisted making the changes under the existing arrangement, arguing that North Macedonia needs stronger guarantees that Bulgaria will not raise additional bilateral demands later in the process.
EU officials have repeatedly maintained that enlargement remains merit-based and that progress depends on candidates meeting agreed conditions.
The result is an increasingly visible divergence.
Albania is closing its first negotiating chapters.
North Macedonia remains unable to open its first cluster.
Opposition turns EU setback into political attack
The reported roadmap plans immediately became a domestic political issue in North Macedonia.
The opposition Social Democratic Union, or SDSM, blamed Mickoski’s government for the country’s exclusion from the four-country group and accused it of deliberately pushing North Macedonia into isolation.
“Who benefits from Macedonia being isolated? Only Vučić and Russia,” SDSM said in a statement, referring to Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić.
The party went further, describing Mickoski as a “Russian proxy player” and accusing his government of pursuing policies favourable to Moscow.
It also attacked the opposition Levica party as pro-Russian and criticised the government’s relationships with Serbia, Hungary and China.
SDSM provided no evidence establishing that Mickoski was acting on behalf of Russia, and the accusation represents the opposition party’s political characterisation of government policy.
The government has consistently presented EU membership as a strategic objective while arguing that North Macedonia should not be required to make further concessions without guarantees over the predictability of its accession process.
That disagreement is increasingly becoming one of the country’s central political divides: not over whether North Macedonia should join the EU, but over what conditions it should accept to advance.
Enlargement at different speeds
The four proposed roadmaps also point to a broader change in the EU’s enlargement strategy.
For years, Western Balkan countries were frequently discussed as a regional group, even though their formal status and progress differed considerably.
The emerging approach is more explicitly differentiated.
Countries demonstrating faster reforms and greater alignment with EU requirements could receive clearer milestones, greater integration into EU programmes and eventually a more visible path towards completing negotiations.
Those moving more slowly would remain candidates but would not necessarily advance alongside their neighbours.
That principle is already reshaping the Western Balkans.
Montenegro is attempting to finish negotiations.
Albania has begun closing chapters.
North Macedonia remains blocked before opening clusters.
Serbia’s negotiations have slowed significantly, while Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo remain at earlier stages of the accession process.
The Commission is expected to present its broader review of pre-accession policy in early October, with EU leaders due to discuss enlargement and internal reforms later in the month.
Ukraine and Moldova reshape the race
The inclusion of Ukraine and Moldova alongside the two Western Balkan frontrunners also shows how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has transformed enlargement.
Ukraine applied for EU membership days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 and received candidate status four months later. Formal accession negotiations began in June 2024.
Its first negotiating cluster, Fundamentals, was opened in June this year.
Moldova has also accelerated its European integration amid concerns in Brussels over Russian interference and regional security.
The result is an enlargement process no longer defined primarily by the Western Balkans.
Eastern European candidates are now competing within the same political framework, while the EU increasingly presents enlargement as both a reform mechanism and a strategic response to geopolitical instability.
From joint start to separate tracks
For North Macedonia, however, Albania provides the most politically uncomfortable comparison.
The two countries stood together when accession negotiations formally began in 2022.
They no longer do.
Albania has opened all negotiating chapters and begun provisionally closing them. It is now among the four candidates for which Brussels is reportedly preparing a more detailed route towards completing negotiations.
North Macedonia remains a candidate with formally launched accession negotiations, but its next step remains tied to constitutional changes that the government has so far declined to implement under the existing terms.
The proposed roadmaps do not close the EU door to Skopje, nor do they guarantee that the four selected candidates will become members on a particular date.
They do, however, make one change increasingly difficult to ignore.
EU enlargement is moving at different speeds – and Albania and North Macedonia, once treated as a pair, are now travelling on separate tracks.