European Council President António Costa is beginning a Western Balkans tour in Sarajevo on Monday, opening a week of high-level diplomacy aimed at reinforcing the European Union’s commitment to enlargement and testing the region’s readiness to move from political declarations to concrete reforms.
Costa is scheduled to meet members of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina — Denis Bećirović, Željka Cvijanović and Željko Komšić — followed by joint press statements in Sarajevo. He is also due to meet Borjana Krišto, Chairwoman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The visit launches a regional itinerary that will take the European Council president to Tirana, Skopje, Pristina, Belgrade and Tivat between 1 and 5 June.
The European Council has framed the tour as part of a wider political effort to sustain enlargement momentum and strengthen EU engagement with all six Western Balkans partners. Costa is expected to discuss enlargement, gradual integration, regional cooperation, security and stability, with the week culminating in the EU-Western Balkans Summit in Tivat, Montenegro, on Friday.
Sarajevo is a significant starting point. Bosnia and Herzegovina has formally advanced on the EU path, but its accession process remains among the most institutionally complex in the region. The country’s state-level decision-making structure, the role of its two entities and the requirements of consensus politics have repeatedly slowed the adoption and implementation of EU-related reforms. For Brussels, the challenge is not only to keep Bosnia and Herzegovina politically anchored to the EU track, but also to ensure that the accession process produces functioning institutions, rule-of-law commitments and credible administrative capacity.
The European Council decided in March 2024 to open accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina, following an earlier decision in December 2022 to grant the country candidate status. However, the start of negotiations in practice depends on further steps, including alignment with the EU acquis, institutional preparation and the fulfilment of reform benchmarks. The European Commission’s enlargement reporting has repeatedly emphasised that Bosnia and Herzegovina must strengthen democratic governance, public administration, the judiciary, anti-corruption safeguards, border management and the functioning of state institutions.
Costa’s visit therefore carries a dual message. The first is reassurance: the EU’s enlargement agenda remains active, and Bosnia and Herzegovina is included in that strategic vision. The second is conditionality: the path to membership remains tied to reforms, political functionality and the ability of domestic leaders to deliver on commitments already made to Brussels.
The Western Balkans tour also comes at a time when the EU is seeking to make enlargement more operational. Rather than treating membership as a distant end point only, Brussels has increasingly promoted gradual integration, including earlier access to parts of the EU single market and EU programmes where candidate countries meet the required standards. This approach is linked to the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, a framework designed to accelerate socio-economic convergence, deepen regional economic cooperation and reward reform implementation with financial support and market access.
Under the Growth Plan, the EU has placed greater emphasis on connecting reforms to tangible benefits for citizens and businesses before full accession. The plan aims to encourage Western Balkans partners to align with EU rules while also advancing the Common Regional Market. The European Commission has described weak economic convergence as a major obstacle for the region, with the Western Balkans still substantially below the EU average in income levels. Brussels argues that bringing the region closer to the single market can support investment, employment and resilience while strengthening the credibility of enlargement.
For Bosnia and Herzegovina, this agenda is particularly relevant. The country needs both political reforms and economic convergence to move closer to the EU. Its reform agenda has been assessed in the context of the Growth Plan, but implementation remains vulnerable to domestic disputes and administrative fragmentation. Costa’s talks in Sarajevo are expected to place those issues within the wider regional context: the EU wants each Western Balkans partner to progress on its own merits, while also pressing the region to improve cooperation across borders.
The itinerary following Sarajevo reflects that regional approach. On Tuesday, Costa is due to visit Tirana for meetings with Albanian President Bajram Begaj and Prime Minister Edi Rama, followed by a press conference. He is also expected to meet students from the College of Europe and Tirana University, as well as young ambassadors, underscoring the EU’s emphasis on youth engagement and educational links. Later the same day, he is scheduled to travel to Skopje for talks with North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski.
On Wednesday, Costa is expected in Pristina, where the European Council schedule lists meetings with acting President Albulena Haxhiu, outgoing Prime Minister Albin Kurti and the chairs of opposition political parties. The Kosovo stop comes amid continuing political and diplomatic complexity, including Pristina’s unresolved relationship with Serbia and its still incomplete recognition within the EU. The European Council refers to Kosovo with the standard status-neutral formulation used in EU documents, reflecting the legal and political sensitivity around its international status.
On Thursday, Costa is due in Belgrade for meetings with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, Speaker of Parliament Ana Brnabić and civil society organisations. Serbia remains a central actor in the region’s accession landscape because of its size, its role in regional security, its relations with Kosovo and its foreign-policy alignment issues. The inclusion of civil society meetings in Belgrade also points to Brussels’ continued focus on democratic standards, public accountability and rule-of-law concerns as core parts of the enlargement process.
The tour is scheduled to end in Montenegro, where Costa will attend a leaders’ dinner in Tivat on Thursday before co-chairing the EU-Western Balkans Summit on Friday. Montenegro has long been considered one of the most advanced Western Balkans candidates in formal accession terms, and the decision to hold the summit in the region is intended to give political visibility to the enlargement process. The summit is expected to bring together regional leaders and senior EU officials, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The agenda in Tivat is expected to focus on enlargement, the Growth Plan, gradual integration, regional cooperation and security. The summit will provide a platform for EU leaders to assess whether the region’s governments are using the current enlargement momentum to accelerate reforms, and whether the Union itself is prepared to make the process more credible and more predictable.
The EU’s renewed focus on enlargement has been shaped by the wider geopolitical environment. Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, hybrid threats, energy security concerns and external influence in Europe’s neighbourhood have pushed enlargement back toward the centre of EU strategic policy. For Brussels, the Western Balkans are not only a long-standing accession file, but also a test of the EU’s ability to stabilise its immediate neighbourhood and compete with other external actors through institutions, investment and political alignment.
At the same time, enlargement remains politically difficult inside the EU. Member states continue to debate how to preserve the Union’s decision-making capacity as it expands, how to enforce rule-of-law standards after accession and how to balance merit-based progress with geopolitical urgency. Candidate countries, for their part, expect clearer benefits and timelines after years of slow movement and reform fatigue. Costa’s tour is therefore not only a message to the Western Balkans; it is also part of an internal EU conversation about whether enlargement can be made credible without weakening the Union’s institutional standards.
Bosnia and Herzegovina illustrates the tension between geopolitical urgency and reform conditionality. EU officials have repeatedly stated that the country’s future lies in the Union, but they have also stressed that accession depends on functioning institutions, legal reforms and the ability to speak and act through effective state-level structures. Political crises in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including disputes linked to the Republika Srpska entity and challenges to state authority, have repeatedly raised concerns in Brussels about stability and reform delivery.
For Sarajevo, Costa’s visit offers an opportunity to show renewed commitment to the European path at a senior level. Meetings with the Presidency and Council of Ministers place responsibility on both collective and executive institutions. The EU’s central question is whether Bosnia and Herzegovina can convert broad public support for EU membership into legislation, administrative alignment and implementation across all levels of government.
The message from Brussels is expected to remain calibrated: support for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s European future, coupled with insistence on reforms and political responsibility. Costa has described his Western Balkans engagement as a signal that the EU’s commitment to the region is real and that the opportunity for enlargement is also real. But the practical meaning of that message depends on whether regional leaders can demonstrate progress before and after the Tivat summit.
The Sarajevo opening also gives the EU a chance to frame the week around stability. Bosnia and Herzegovina remains one of the most sensitive political environments in the Western Balkans because of its post-war constitutional order, ethnic power-sharing arrangements and recurring disputes over state competences. Any EU enlargement push in the region must therefore address not only technical accession chapters, but also political cohesion, reconciliation and the durability of institutions.
Security is another expected theme. The Western Balkans are central to EU concerns over migration management, organised crime, cyber resilience, disinformation and foreign influence. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s cooperation with EU agencies, including in border and migration management, is part of the broader accession framework. The EU has increasingly linked enlargement policy with security policy, arguing that closer integration of the Western Balkans strengthens the resilience of the continent as a whole.
Regional cooperation will also be a recurring issue during the tour. The EU has long argued that Western Balkans partners must improve cooperation among themselves as a condition for deeper integration with the Union. The Common Regional Market, transport links, energy connectivity, mutual recognition of professional qualifications and trade facilitation all form part of the broader effort to prepare the region for the single market. Brussels sees these measures as both economic tools and confidence-building mechanisms.
For the EU, the week’s diplomacy is intended to show continuity at the highest level. The European Council president’s direct engagement with each Western Balkans partner gives political weight to technical enlargement work being conducted by the European Commission and member states. It also allows Brussels to gather regional positions ahead of the Tivat summit, where leaders are expected to assess what can be delivered in the near term.
The tour’s sequencing matters. Beginning in Sarajevo foregrounds a country whose EU path is open but fragile. Ending in Montenegro, an accession frontrunner, allows the EU to present the region as moving forward while still differentiating among partners according to progress. Stops in Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia underline that no single issue defines the region’s European trajectory; rather, enlargement depends on a combination of bilateral disputes, domestic reforms, governance standards and geopolitical alignment.
Whether the tour produces immediate announcements is less important than the political signal it sends. The EU is trying to demonstrate that the Western Balkans are not being left in a waiting room while attention shifts to Ukraine, Moldova or internal EU reform. At the same time, Brussels is making clear that enlargement momentum does not remove the requirement for credible reforms.
In Sarajevo, that balance will be closely watched. Bosnia and Herzegovina has been given a clearer European perspective than at many points in the past decade, but its progress remains vulnerable to internal blockage. Costa’s opening stop places the country at the centre of the EU enlargement debate for the week and sets the tone for a regional tour that will test both EU commitment and Western Balkans readiness.
Leave a Reply