Serbia and Montenegro are likely be the next countries to join the European Union, possibly by 2025, the bloc’s official in charge of membership bids said in an interview.
The European Union is launching a diplomatic effort to accelerate steps to bring six countries in the Western Balkans into the EU fold after years of stop-start progress.
“It is time to finish the work of 1989,” European Commissioner Johannes Hahn told Reuters, referring to the EU’s eastward expansion after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“We have set 2025 as an indicative date for Serbia and Montenegro, which is realistic but also very ambitious.”
Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia all hope to join the European Union but have seen their membership chances fade in recent years as the bloc’s politicians, faced with rising eurosceptism at home, the 2009-2013 eurozone crisis and Britain’s vote to leave the bloc, appeared to lose interest.