About the project  

“GuiDE to EU Membership – Germany’s Role in Paving the Way for Enlargement” is a one-year pilot project of the Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP), supported by the Open Society Foundations – Western Balkans. It seeks to strengthen Germany’s commitment to and preparedness for EU enlargement, with a specific focus on Montenegro and Albania as the current frontrunner EU candidate countries in the Western Balkans. Against the backdrop of renewed geopolitical attention to enlargement, the project addresses the gap between declaratory support and concrete political preparation within Germany and the EU. 

GuiDE follows a three-pillar approach combining analysis, coalition-building, and advocacy. 

Pillar I- Accession Diagnostics analyses the reform progress, accession negotiations and political readiness of Montenegro and Albania, identifying key drivers, obstacles, and realistic pathways toward membership. 

Pillar II- Coalition Building establishes a pro-enlargement coalition connecting German stakeholders and civil society with policy experts from Montenegro and Albania, fostering a sustainable advocacy network. 

Pillar III- Advocacy translates the analytical findings and coalition-building work into direct political engagement, targeting not only the federal level but also sub-federal actors in Germany to strengthen awareness of the political relevance and feasibility of the next EU enlargement. 

Through this approach, GuiDE seeks to foster a better-informed and more strategic political debate in Germany on the EU accession prospects of Montenegro and Albania. 

Local impact 

By focusing on Germany as a key EU member state whose political support is essential for the success of EU enlargement, GuiDE seeks to shift the debate from declaratory commitment to concrete preparation. The project’s Accession Readiness Diagnostic will provide German stakeholders and decision-makers with a structured, evidence-based assessment of where Montenegro and Albania stand in the accession process and what steps remain. Through coalition-building activities — including a stakeholder roundtable and a networking visit of Montenegrin and Albanian policy experts to Berlin — the project connects German civil society, political foundations, and think tanks with counterparts from the two candidate countries, fostering informed engagement and local ownership of the enlargement agenda. The closed-door policy briefings with sub-federal authorities from North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria target an underexplored but strategically relevant constituency — the Bundesrat level — raising awareness of the direct relevance of EU enlargement to Länder-level decision-making. 

Regional impact 

GuiDE contributes to the broader regional EU integration agenda by making the reform progress and accession readiness of Montenegro and Albania more visible in one of the EU’s most influential member states. By building a transnational pro-enlargement coalition that includes civil society actors and policy experts from the Western Balkans alongside German stakeholders, the project strengthens cross-border advocacy networks and creates a framework for joint political engagement. The analytical outputs — particularly the Accession Readiness Diagnostic and the Coalition Paper — are designed as living instruments, open to new signatories and adaptable to evolving accession dynamics, with the potential to serve as models for similar initiatives in other EU member states. As a pilot project, GuiDE is deliberately conceived to lay the groundwork for a more substantial advocacy effort that could expand its geographic scope to additional candidate countries and deepen engagement with political decision-makers across the EU.