European Commission issues Serbia 2026 enlargement report

The European Commission has published the Serbia 2026 Report as part of the EU enlargement package.

• The report assesses Serbia’s progress across accession clusters, finding mixed progress, including good progress in statistics, but backsliding or no progress in areas such as democracy, judicial independence, media freedom, and parts of public administration reform.
• It records several concrete policy and legal developments in 2025-2026, including new electoral laws, amendments to judicial laws, new energy and climate laws, and a number of trade, defence, and regional-cooperation issues; the report also notes Serbia has opened 22 of 35 negotiating chapters and says cluster 3 is technically ready to open.
• The document is a Commission staff working document dated 4 November 2026 and is a first-time annual assessment rather than a deal announcement; it includes extensive quantified findings and references to many ongoing policy processes, but no single commercial transaction.