Wider Europe Briefing: Montenegro Edging Closer To The EU

Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.

I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I am drilling down on two issues: Montenegro edging closer to the European Union; and more sanctions on Russians for the deportation of Ukrainian children.

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Briefing #1: The EU Quietly Takes A Big Step Toward Montenegro's Accession

What You Need To Know: 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.”

Deep Background: 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.

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 closed, 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.

Drilling Down

A senior diplomat involved in the drafting of Croatia’s treaty, which stretched to around 250 pages, says that some 80-85 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 that 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.
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 all the country’s 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.

Briefing #2: EU To Sanction More Russians Over Deportation Of Ukrainian Children

What You Need To Know: The EU is preparing more sanctions on people and entities in Russia and Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine that the bloc deems responsible for the illegal deportation and so-called “reeducation efforts” of Ukrainian children.

In a sanctions proposal seen by RFE/RL, the EU calls the activities by Moscow “grave breaches of international law and a violation of the fundamental rights of the child with the aim to erase Ukrainian identity and undermine the preservation of its future generations.”

Over the last three years, the EU blacklisted several organizations and people involved in these deportations and, on May 6, EU ambassadors are set to green-light more sanctions on over a dozen new names.

Deep Background: One of the proposed entities for sanctions is the Children’s Center Smena which is linked to the Russian Education Ministry.

According to the text, the center “hosts Ukrainian minors forcibly transferred from occupied territories, where they are subject to ideological indoctrination, “Russification,” and militarized-style education.”

Another entity is the Avangard Military Camp, which the EU says sends children for “political indoctrination and activities consistent with militarized and cadet-style education frameworks, such as military training and discipline.”

Two other organizations, based in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, are also mentioned as hubs for “reeducation, ideological indoctrination, and militarization of children.”

Russian officials deny illegally taking Ukrainian children from their country, instead portraying their involvement as a humanitarian gesture -- sheltering, feeding, or protecting minors from the war -- or as a necessity due to the breakdown of services in regions of Ukraine because of the conflict, now in its fifth year.

Drilling Down

Rather unusually for EU sanctions, the majority of those proposed to be targeted with asset freezes and visa bans in this batch are women.
Some of them are heads of various camps and educational institutions in which the Ukrainian children are placed such as Lilya Shvetsova who is in charge of the Red Carnation camp that according to Brussels offers a program that “includes educational and training activities promoting pro-Russian narratives, patriotic messaging, and elements of military-patriotic instruction.”
Another, Natalya Shevchuk, is described as heading several “military-patriotic clubs” in Ukrainian territory under Russian control with the goal of pushing “narratives portraying the Russian Federation as a “peacekeeping” and humanitarian actor, while disseminating pro-Russian ideology and undermining Ukrainian national identity among minors in occupied territory.”
Several others of those targeted, such as children’s ombudsmen and commissioners for children’s rights, are also in charge of resettling young Ukrainians into Russian families whereas blacklistings also include those involved in giving paramilitary training to minors or facilitating meetings with Russian military personnel, initiatives often supported by the Kremlin under the slogan “Dialogues with Heroes.”
The new sanctions come ahead of a gathering of foreign ministers from Canada, Ukraine, and the EU, along with high-level officials from nearly 50 countries, in Brussels on May 11 to discuss ways to return Ukrainian children.
The meeting is organized by the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children, which was launched by Canada and Ukraine two years ago and now includes 47 members, including most European nations, Australia, Japan, and the United States.
So far, the coalition and its members have ensured the return to Ukraine of about 1,600 children, while the coalition estimates that “thousands” still remain.
According to the invitation to the meeting, seen by RFE/RL, the focus of the gathering will be on developing several policy tools to make sure the children can be brought back to Ukraine.
The tools listed include improved tracing and verification systems, support actors such as Ukrainian and international NGOs involved in various return efforts, increased financing for post-return protection mechanisms, and stepping up work on sanctioning people involved in the deportations.

Looking Ahead

One interesting presentation will happen in the European Parliament in Brussels on May 6 when the mayor of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, Vadym Boychenko, addresses the chamber’s regional affairs committee.

The city by the Sea of Azov fell to Russian forces almost four years ago and has remained Kremlin-controlled ever since. Boychenko has been one of the strongest voices regarding the city’s destruction and future fate.

That's all for this week! Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on X @RikardJozwiak, or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.

Until next time,

Rikard Jozwiak

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