Berlin Process Needs to Level the Playing Field in Bilateral Disputes

On October 22, Montenegro will host the Berlin Process Leaders’ Summit while itself dealing with a neighbouring EU member state’s power to halt its EU accession progress.

The country is widely considered a frontrunner for EU membership and has provisionally closed 21 of 33 negotiating chapters. Yet neighbouring Croatia is holding up progress over unresolved bilateral issues ranging from war crimes and missing persons to state property claims, maritime borders and the Jadran sailing ship.

Few would question the importance of investigating war crimes or settling state borders, which are legitimate matters that should not be pushed aside for the sake of enlargement. The real question is:  is it acceptable for an EU member state to make the accession process conditional on its own demands without any scrutiny of the demands’ relevance, proportionality or prospects for resolution? When bilateral disagreements become EU accession vetoes, they cease to be a problem for just the two countries involved.

This issue has repeatedly arisen across the Western Balkans. In May 2024, Albania’s relations with Greece became strained after Albania imprisoned Fredis Beleris, the ethnic Greek mayor-elect of Himara, who was convicted of vote buying. Greece warned that the affair could affect Albania’s EU ambitions.