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The Munich Security Conference drew to a close on Sunday with a promising message for European Union candidate countries Albania and Montenegro.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said Albania and Montenegro are the “front-runners” among the current candidates for EU accession and that their continuing negotiations could be concluded by the end of 2026 or 2027.
She added that North Macedonia could also be “very, very quickly on a good path”.
Kos has been an EU commissioner since last year and emphasised that she could bring two to three accession negotiations to a conclusion by the end of her term.

However, an end to negotiations would not yet mean that these countries could actually join the EU. A prerequisite for this is that all EU countries agree to and then ratify the accession treaties negotiated by the European Commission.
Grey-haired Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama was cautiously optimistic about the announcement, noting that at the beginning of the process his locks were black.
His North Macedonian counterpart Hristijan Mickoski also expressed strong criticism of the lengthy accession negotiations. He said he hoped other countries wanting to join the EU would not have the same experience as his country.
North Macedonia has been an official candidate for EU accession since 2005, Montenegro since 2010 and Albania since 2014.
Kos said she could understand the disappointment over the sometimes lengthy negotiations. “We are already accelerating the process, especially with Ukraine. We are working in the European Union two to three times faster, but we should distinguish between the technical part of the process and the political part,” she emphasised.
Politically, it remains the case that no important steps can be implemented without the will of the member states, she added.


A lecture by US Vice-President J.D. Vance on the first day of the conference remained a dominant topic of debate throughout the weekend.
In his speech, Vance sharply criticised European allies, accusing them of restricting freedom of expression and endangering democracy.
Among other things, he condemned the exclusion of the far-right Alliance for Germany (AfD) and the populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) from the security conference and generally opposed the exclusion of parties. Representatives of the German government rejected this.
Speaking to the German magazine Stern, US historian Timothy Snyder said Vance’s speech was one “of an imperialist who wants to undermine the rule of law in Germany and the entire EU”, and urged Europeans to be much more proactive.
“There is a European habit of waiting to see what the Americans will do, or what the Russians will do. Europe urgently needs to overcome this,” Snyder said in comments published by Stern on Sunday.
“Europeans will paralyse themselves if they continue to assume that they cannot achieve anything as long as it is unclear what America and Russia are doing,” he said.

Snyder also spoke of US President Donald Trump’s planned talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine, saying no one could be sure whether such an agreement could be relied upon.
“Trump and Putin are like two entwined snakes. It’s a fascinating spectacle. You watch them, mesmerised, and you’re not quite sure: Are they fighting or caressing each other?” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that a proposed deal with the United States offering access to his country’s critical minerals would not work if security guarantees sought by Kyiv were not provided.
“If we are not given the security guarantees from the United States, I believe that the economic treaty will not work,” Zelensky told NBC. “It must all be fair.”
Speaking on Saturday at the Munich security conference, Zelensky said the proposed accord was “not in our interest today”.
The conference in the Bavarian capital ended with an emotional send-off for outgoing head Christoph Heusgen.
Heusgen, 69, a long-term adviser to former German chancellor Angela Merkel, showed visible emotion as he handed over to former Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg in the Bayerischer Hof hotel to applause from the participants.
Stoltenberg said Heusgen had made the key international conference stronger, broader and better over his three years in the position.
After serving for the next six months as finance minister in Norway’s transitional government, Stoltenberg will take over full-time organisation of the conference ahead of the next edition in February 2026.


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EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said Albania and Montenegro are the ‘front-runners’ among current candidates for EU accession


EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said Albania and Montenegro are the ‘front-runners’ among current candidates for EU accession.
