Six years since the start of accession negotiations, Montenegro is still a showcase of state capture. In the same manner it has been exhausting domestic democratic public for decades, Montenegrin Government masterfully applies the exhaustion strategy to the process of European integration, abusing the EU’s need for a new integration optimism.

Citizens cannot see progress in curbing the entanglement of public and ruling party’s interests, or in dismantling the links with organised crime and corruption at all levels of the government. Weak and politicised institutions, impunity for the corrupted officials and misuse of public funds, state interference into media market and jeopardizing of the independence of public broadcaster feat by ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), hostile actions towards critically oriented NGOs and targeting its leaders — all of them are still alive and well in Montenegro, Western Balkans “frontrunner” toward EU.

Hence, a key question in the EU-Montenegro relations must be answered — will the EU keep turning a blind eye to the absence of track record, perseverance of old and introduction of new undemocratic practices?

Accolades for the progress, as well as the persistent emphasis of the “leadership in the region” fail to motivate the authorities to do more and to do better. They also neither strengthen nor meaningfully include civil society, media and democratic opposition interested in reforms.

No one in Montenegro expects the EU to change the government or influence political developments in that respect. However, it is reasonable for the promoters of European integration to expect the European Commission (EC) to credibly demonstrate that a candidate country can earn leadership status and achieve progress by no means other than political will and implementation of reforms that deliver sustainable results.

It is about time that good neighbourly relations and constructive foreign policy, aligned with the EU and confirmed by the NATO membership, do not stand as major indicators of the country’s success and cease to be a trade-off for ever-growing need for the internal democratic reforms.

This paper presents a series of examples illustrating failure or facade of reforms in the key areas of rule of law, including the lack of follow up to electoral frauds, inflated statistics which mimics the lack of substantial results in the fight against organised crime and corruption, and selective approach of key anti-corruption institutions. They demonstrate a need for a different attitude of the European Union towards Montenegro, which would prevent authorities from faking reforms and make them deliver results needed for the lasting societal change.

Montenegro opened accession negotiations with the EU in June 2012, being the first country to undergo the new approach, which frontloads rule of law criteria. The new approach places emphasis on Chapter 23 (Judiciary and Fundamental Rights) and Chapter 24 (Justice, Freedom and Security). The two chapters are opened early in the process, with the aim of allowing the country to adjust to complex reforms, which alongside technical aspects, capacity building and legislative alignment, require a track record of fighting organized crime and high level corruption.

Between June 2012 and January 2018, Montenegro opened 30 chapters and provisionally closed 3 chapters. In addition, following the “State of the Union” address by Commissioner Juncker, the newly announced Enlargement Strategy for the region outlined a clear perspective for the first time, with a potential date for Montenegro’s accession to the EU of 2025.1

Government officials often use the opening of negotiation chapters as an indicator of success. Nonetheless, the closure of most chapters is still pending. This depends, at least officially, on meeting selected interim benchmarks, which should lead to the closing benchmarks. The aim of this analysis is precisely to assess the selected interim benchmarks within Chapters 23 and 24. By benchmarks we imply concrete requirements which key EU enlargement documents specifically formulate for the Montenegrin authorities, whose conditions for implementation signify further progress along the country’s path to EU accession.

Apart from assessing the content of benchmarks and their adequacy for the domestic context, as well as moni- toring their implementation, we have tried to assess the monitoring tools used to judge the implementation of benchmarks and the achievement of the objectives which they define. In our view, this can serve as an indicator of the effectiveness of EU conditionality, and should provide guidance for enhancement of the current bench- marking system and EU conditionality in general.

The selected benchmarks encompass various aspects of Montenegro’s alignment with EU standards: legal and technical as well as the required track record of prosecuting organized crime and corruption, or the emphasis on establishing merit-based recruitment in public administration and the judiciary. The importance of analysing benchmarks is indicated by the lack of qualitative discussion about the content and consistency of EU conditionality. On the other hand, some countries are labelled frontrunners or stragglers in the process, despite a lack of in-depth analysis of the conditions imposed and their actual compliance with them.

The selected benchmarks are taken from official documents which outline the key conditions that Montenegro needs to meet for the two chapters, especially the EU’s common positions on the two chapters and their action plans. This analysis forms part of a wider regional project, which permits comparison of the benchmarks set for the two countries that are currently undergoing accession negotiations – Montenegro and Serbia. Conditions set for other candidate countries, as outlined in other enlargement documents (country reports; roadmaps; Enlargement strategy), have also been taken into account.