Progress on the Road to EU Accession: A Montenegrin Perspective

As Ireland prepares for its EU Presidency in the second half of 2026, this keynote speech by Deputy Prime Minister Ivanović addresses the key topic of EU Enlargement. Deputy Prime Minister Ivanović presents Montenegro’s journey as the frontrunner in the European Union accession process, emphasising the country’s achievements, its enduring challenges and its clear vision for the future. From a Montenegrin perspective, EU integration is not merely a technical process, but a strategic and value-driven choice that reaffirms Montenegro’s European identity and its role as a regional leader on the path towards full membership. Speaker bio: Dr Filip Ivanović is the Deputy Prime Minister for Foreign and European Affairs of Montenegro, a position he has held since July 2024. Prior to this post, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs. From May 2022 to August 2023, Dr Ivanović served as member of the Governing Board of the University of Montenegro. From 2018 to 2021, he was member of the Working Group for the Negotiations on Accession of Montenegro to the EU for Chapter 25 ‘Science and Research’. Deputy Prime Minister Ivanović has a distinguished academic career and was a research/teaching fellow at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the University of Leuven, the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, and the University of Donja Gorica. In February 2020, Dr Ivanović was a visiting professor at the University of North Bengal and in April 2022, he was appointed assistant research professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the University of Montenegro. Since 2021, he has also been a visiting scholar at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in History of Ideas (CRISI) at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan. Deputy Prime Minister Ivanović is also an expert evaluator of the European Commission, expert of the Agency for Control and Quality Assurance of Higher Education of Montenegro, member of the College of Research Associates of the European Science Foundation, a fellow of the Young Academy of Europe and the Royal Historical Society, and member of the Committee for Philosophy and Sociology of the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts. He holds BA and MA degrees from the University of Bologna and a PhD from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. He also holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Diplomatic Practice from the United Nations Institute for Training and Research.