(di Alessandra Briganti) (ANSA) - PODGORICA, OCT 5 - To become the 28th member state of the EU by 2028. For Montenegro, '28 by 28' is more than just a slogan. It is a goal that the Balkan state, which separated from Serbia in a referendum in 2006, is determined to hit, buoyed by the favorable winds blowing across Europe on enlargement after a stalemate lasting more than a decade. It was the year 2013 when the last of the EU states, Croatia, joined the blustery club. Back in 2014, the then head of the European Commission Jean Claude Juncker had extinguished enthusiasm by closing to the possibility of further enlargement during his term. Times past. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has brought the dossier back to the top of the agenda, a geopolitical imperative to secure the Old Continent. Of the ten states aspiring to join the EU - Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Albania, and Turkey - Podgorica carries the title of front runner. Just over six hundred thousand inhabitants, already a member of NATO, Montenegro, which of the EU also shares the euro, adopted unilaterally in 2002, is considered an "easy cake" for the Twenty-seven to digest. The government of Milojko Spajić, in the saddle since 2023, has set a strong pace for accession negotiations. "The promise to the Montenegrin people," says the premier, "is that we will make all the necessary reforms by the end of 2026. After that the ball will pass to the European side and it will become a political process." Spajić has no doubt that Podgorica's EU membership will bring with it a great political advantage, "proving that enlargement is alive and well, a message of hope for those who aspire to join the EU." The goal is shared by all political forces in the country. "We don't have any anti-European voices on the political scene," says opposition MP Jevrosima Pejović, an independent, who, however, warns of the possible intensification of Russian pressure near the finish line, as happened with Podgorica's NATO membership, which resulted in a failed coup attempt in October 2016. The fear is that the pro-Serb forces that make up the governing majority could slow or block Podgorica's ride to the EU. "We can finish the job within the next year, but," notes EU Ambassador to Montenegro Johann Sattler, "it is very important to maintain political stability. The president of the Montenegrin Parliament, Andrija Mandić, leader of the pro-Serbian New Serbian Democracy party, who ended up in the dock for the failed coup, denies trying to sabotage the accession process. Yet Mandić himself was among the initiators of a controversial resolution, passed by the Montenegrin Assembly, on Jasenovac, the largest extermination camp in Croatia in World War II. It was a move that caused no small amount of friction with Zagreb, slowing Podgorica's pace toward the goal. And Serbian and Russian offshoots on the governing coalition, as well as the Serbian Orthodox Church, which is still very influential in the country, are not the only pitfalls on Montenegro's European path. The shadow of other foreign powers such as China looms over the Balkan state. In 2021, Podgorica risked falling into Beijing's debt trap over the construction of a highway financed by the Export-Import Bank of China, a trap from which it was rescued thanks to a shield of Western banks that protected Montenegro from further debt buildup. "The EU," Spajić warns, "must become a geopolitical actor and not leave the Balkans as the soft underbelly of Europe for other actors to eat. The era of geopolitical naiveté is over." (ANSA).