Letter from Brussels: EU’s 15-Year ‘Probation’ Plan is an Unfair Deal for Balkan States

Most big Brussels documents have one sentence that matters more than all the rest. In the pre-enlargement package Marta Kos presented in Strasbourg on October 6, it comes near the end, in the chapter on safeguards in future accession treaties. The new institutional safeguard clause, it says, would apply for up to 15 years after accession.

If Montenegro joins the club in 2028, as Podgorica still hopes, it would, therefore, stay on probation until 2043. A child born in Cetinje on accession day would be almost halfway through high school before the country became a member like any other.

Albania, Moldova and Ukraine, the other frontrunners the paper obviously has in mind, would face the same rules, although their accession is still further away.