EU ambassadors gave a green light to both a 90 billion-euro ($106 billion) loan to Ukraine and the latest round of sanctions on Russia, but another decision went largely unnoticed: the creation of a working group to draft Montenegro’s EU accession treaty.
While creating such a group in the Council of Ministers is mainly a technical matter and a rather small step in the grand scheme of EU enlargement policy, its symbolic value runs deep.
“This is confirmation of a political decision of the member states that Montenegro will be a future member state," one senior European diplomat told RFE/RL under the condition of anonymity.
"Once you decide to start work on drafting the accession treaty then there are no doubts any longer regarding the end result.”
It is now, in other words, not a question of whether Montenegro will join the club, but how fast it gets there.
The Adriatic nation has said it aims to become the 28th EU member state by 2028, a lofty goal if one looks at the last addition to the bloc, Croatia in July 2013.
Croatia’s working group was set up in December 2009, when it had closed 28 out of the 33 accession chapters covering a broad swath of policy fields a candidate country needs to make sure are aligned with those of the bloc.
Tricky Issues Remain
Montenegro has currently closed just 14 but hopes to finish the rest by the end of this year.
Few in Brussels think this is possible given that some of the toughest issues, involving justice, home affairs, food safety, and competition policy remain to be solved. And six months is probably not sufficient to solve everything.
The working group will truly kick into gear once all the chapters are closed. The one created for Montenegro hasn’t been met yet but will “soonish,” according to an EU diplomat with insights into the matter who cannot speak on the record.
Once all -- or nearly all -- chapters are close, the group will become very busy. It is then that the final touches and legal wrangling will begin with nearly daily meetings. For Croatia that period took about five months of fine tuning the text.
A senior diplomat involved in the drafting of Croatia’s treaty, which stretched some 250 pages, says that around 80 percent to 85 percent of the text will be the same as that document. It's simply various EU rules that apply for all.
It is the remainder that matter.
How many members of the European Parliament will the new country have, for example? In Montenegro’s case probably six given its population of slightly more than half a million is similar to that of the bloc’s smallest state Malta.
But more importantly, there needs to be a settlement on various transition periods for when EU rules become enforceable and time-limited derogations in fields such as agriculture, phytosanitary rules, freedom of movement and the right of purchasing property in the country that will be up for negotiations as this is matter of millions of euros.
Given Montenegro’s small size, much of this might not be very controversial.
A new aspect will be so-called “reinforced safeguards” in the treaty that could lead to the loss of EU funds if there is “democratic backsliding” in new member states in a bid to prevent what the bloc has experienced with countries such as Hungary.
Debate Over The Montenegrin Language
But what is then likely to slow down the process for Montenegro, preventing Podgorica from joining in 2028?
One potential issue that EU diplomats have pointed out, even though it may not end up being one, is the Montenegrin language.
No one is doubting that it is the official language of the country and could therefore become an official EU language, but some have raised questions as to whether it is really necessary to employ a full batch of Montenegrin interpreters when Croatian is so similar?
Many Western member states, keen on cost-cutting and with one eye on other Balkan nations joining with similar languages, might want to make language an example.
Then there is the fact that every accession treaty is a basic treaty. This means that you can tackle other EU matters that in fact have nothing to do with Montenegrin membership.
In the Croatian case two protocols promising specific political guarantees for Ireland and an opt-out for the Czech Republic from the charter of fundamental rights were attached to the whole process.
Don’t rule out that the Montenegrin treaty will contain more fundamental changes to EU treaties and institutions that pave the way for a bigger member state such as Ukraine to join in the near future.
But the real hurdle might in fact come after the working group is done, the text is set in stone, and the treaty is signed. Because then the ratification process starts.
That means parliamentary votes in the 27 EU member states. Often that means two votes as many EU member states have an upper and lower chamber. In Belgium it could be as many as 10 votes in the country’s all regional and language community chambers.
In France that could be a referendum if a three-fifths majority isn’t met in the National Assembly and Senate. And then there is always a political crisis somewhere in the bloc that prevents a vote from taking place. Just look at Bulgaria with eight parliamentary elections in the last five years.
For Croatia this whole process took 18 months and there is nothing stopping any country from wanting to solve a bilateral issue first during the ratification.
So, 2028 might just be too ambitious for Montenegro. But with the working group slowly being set up it is at least a matter of when, not if, the country will join.
