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The Luxembourg round of EU accession conferences on 12 and 13 October moved four candidates forward at once. It was the first such round since 14 July. Montenegro is now two-thirds of the way through the chapters it has to close. Ukraine and Moldova have a second and third cluster open. The hard part of each file is still ahead.
At the 29th accession conference on 12 October, the Council of the EU provisionally closed chapters 17 (economic and monetary policy), 18 (statistics) and 19 (social policy and employment). All 33 chapters are open and 21 are now provisionally closed. That matches Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos's count at the Berlin Process ministerial near Budva on 1 October, when she told Podgorica it was "firmly in the final phase" with 18 chapters shut.
The government wants talks finished by the end of 2026, a treaty signed in the first half of 2027 and membership in 2028. That leaves 12 chapters for the Irish presidency to close in about ten weeks. The EU has already started on the paperwork. Member-state ambassadors backed an ad hoc working group to draft Montenegro's accession treaty in April, and Kos has said it will be the first treaty to carry safeguard clauses against backsliding on democracy and the rule of law.
Albania closed chapter 20 (enterprise and industrial policy) on 13 October at its 10th conference. That makes four closed out of 33 opened. Montenegro is 17 chapters ahead.
Ukraine and Moldova each opened clusters 2 and 3 at their fourth conferences, covering the internal market, competitiveness and inclusive growth. Together they hold 17 chapters, and the EU set benchmarks for closing them. Clusters 1 (fundamentals) and 6 (external relations) were already open, which leaves clusters 4 (green agenda and connectivity) and 5 (resources, agriculture and cohesion).
The politics came first. According to Kyiv Post, Hungary had blocked these clusters four times, most recently on 8 September. All 27 capitals agreed on 12 October, hours after Ukraine's parliament passed amendments creating a special status for schools that teach in a minority language. Prime Minister Péter Magyar welcomed the change. Parliamentary estimates suggest around 149 schools, about 1.2% of secondary schools, could qualify. Irish Europe minister Thomas Byrne announced the deal on X, and Council President António Costa said the EU looked forward to opening "all remaining clusters as soon as possible".
The European Council discussed enlargement on 15 October. Its conclusions "welcome the ongoing work on drafting the accession treaty with Montenegro" and say the Irish presidency will work towards provisionally closing the remaining chapters, subject to Montenegro delivering the matching reforms. Adi Ćerimagić of the European Stability Initiative called the result "much ado about nothing". In his reading, an explicit push to close all chapters by year-end was softened into customary language, and Croatian media credited Zagreb, which has bilateral concerns with Podgorica.
Country reports for all candidates are due in early November, alongside targeted roadmaps for the four frontrunners: Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova. Some capitals already dispute those roadmaps. The farm file is the sharp edge for Ukraine. The Commission has proposed limiting its access to farm subsidies and sensitive markets even after accession, and Ukraine's agriculture minister Taras Vysotskyi rejected permanent restrictions on 5 October. The Council also stresses that no chapter closure is final until all chapters are agreed.
Kos says 2026 has already seen more chapters opened or closed than any year in the past 25. Every step still runs on unanimity. Hungary's veto just showed it can still set the price of a single step. Montenegro's 2028 date now depends on closing 12 chapters by Christmas, on Zagreb, and on how member states handle the safeguard-heavy treaty. Ukraine and Moldova now have four of six clusters open, yet the hardest one, agriculture and cohesion, is untouched. Watch the November reports for the first real signal of who gets a date and who gets a roadmap.
