Ireland is maintaining its goal of helping Montenegro complete its EU accession negotiations during the country’s presidency of the bloc, although officials acknowledge that the timeline will be difficult to meet.
An intergovernmental conference between Montenegro and EU member states begins in Luxembourg this evening under the chairmanship of Minister for European Affairs Thomas Byrne.
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The meeting will formally close three additional negotiating chapters for Montenegro as it works through the accession process.
That brings the number of chapters provisionally closed to 21 of the 35 required for membership.
“Our ambition is to close all of the chapters by the end of our presidency,” Minister Byrne said.
“We’re still on track for that, but it’s going to be very difficult. It depends on Montenegro. It also depends on the member states as well.”
Mr Byrne said he hoped two further intergovernmental conferences could be held tomorrow, involving member states and Ukraine and Albania, provided two additional “clusters” of negotiating chapters are closed.
“We’re making a lot of progress on accession on the enlargement file, which we put down as a key priority of our presidency,” Mr Byrne told reporters.
“There’s a lot of work to do between now and Christmas [on Montenegro’s accession], but if we’re not there the full way, we’ll be almost there. A lot depends on Montenegro themselves, on the work that they have to do to reach the standards that the EU expects, and then the member states have to be satisfied with that too. So the work continues, and I think today is a good sign of progress.”
