BRUSSELS – Today, the European Commission released its annual reports on the state of play of each candidate country across 33 negotiating chapters. In the Western Balkans, Montenegro and Albania have recorded strong progress compared to 2025, improving their level of preparation in the majority of chapters. Other countries in the region stagnated.
The European Commission assigns two descriptive assessments each year for every negotiating chapter. The first refers to the overall level of preparation of the candidate country in that area, and the second to the progress achieved over the past year.
When it comes to the first assessment, the level of preparation, there are five categories: “early stage,” “some level of preparation,” “moderate level,” “good level,” and “well advanced.”
Compared to 2025, Montenegro improved its level of preparation in 21 out of 33 chapters, while Albania advanced in 20 chapters. Serbia and North Macedonia advanced in only a handful of chapters while Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo recorded no progress in this area.
If the scores for level of preparation were quantified and assigned numbers from 1 to 5, Montenegro would have by far the highest average score in the region, 3.98, an increase from last year’s 3.45. Albania increased its last year’s score from 2.8 to 3.31, surpassing Serbia.
North Macedonia and Serbia now have basically the same score: 3.13. Both countries recorded very limited progress in the level of preparation in the past three years.
Serbia’s level of preparation was downgraded in Chapter 26: Education and culture, as well as in the area of Freedom of expression, which is a part of Chapter 23: Judiciary and fundamental rights. The Commission assessed that Serbia was backsliding in both of these areas in 2025, due to government measures taken in the context of political crisis and student-led protests.
The level of preparation of Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina remained the same at 2.11 and 1.67, respectively. There were no changes in any of their chapters compared to last year.
