Today, the European Commission adopted its annual Enlargement Package, taking stock of progress made by the enlargement partners over the past year and setting out reform priorities for the way forward, European Commission reports.
Enlargement is one of the EU's most consequential policies anchoring peace, stability and prosperity across the continent. Firmly built on the principle of merits, a credible enlargement policy is increasingly an investment in Europe's collective security.
This year's package demonstrates that sustained reforms efforts translate into concrete progress to EU membership, as evidenced by Montenegro, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine. The four countries have advanced their accession negotiations, with clusters opening and chapters being provisionally closed at an unprecedented pace. This year the Commission has presented the financial package for Montenegro's accession and the work on the accession treaty is well underway. Taking this work forward, and as announced by President von der Leyen in her 2026 State of the Union address, the Commission is presenting today indicative roadmaps for these four most-advanced negotiating countries, setting out concrete milestones for the year ahead.
Moldova has continued to make steady progress on its EU accession path, having opened four clusters over the past year. The Commission's assessment remains that Moldova has met the conditions required to open all remaining clusters. Moldova has intensified the alignment of its legislation with the EU acquis across all chapters and made further progress on key rule of law reforms. It has also made very substantial progress towards meeting the interim benchmarks under the fundamentals cluster. It is now important that Moldova continues to maintain the current pace of reforms to allow the country to pursue its ambitious but achievable objective of closing accession negotiations by early 2028.
Ukraine remains committed to its EU accession path despite the challenges caused by Russia's war of aggression, having opened four clusters over the past year. The Commission's assessment remains that Ukraine has met the conditions required to open all remaining clusters. Ukraine has continued to advance on key sectoral reforms. Its institutional framework for combating corruption remains effective, with specialised anti-corruption institutions continuing to operate overall independently and effectively. The focus should now be on meeting the interim benchmarks under the rule of law, as well as delivering on the roadmaps concerning the rule of law, the functioning of democratic institutions and public administration reform, and on the action plan on national minorities. It is important that Ukraine continues to accelerate the pace of reforms, to put the country in a position to meet its ambitious objective to close accession negotiations by the end of 2028.
