Moldova’s Prime Minister Vasile Tofan will meet senior EU officials in Brussels on Monday as the country attempts to move from the opening stages of accession negotiations towards deeper economic, security and institutional integration with the European Union.

The 10th EU-Moldova Association Council will be held in Brussels on 5 October, chaired by EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas. Tofan will lead the Moldovan delegation, while Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos will represent the European Commission.

The meeting will review Moldova’s accession process, political reforms, justice, freedom and security, foreign and security policy, trade, energy and wider economic co-operation. Regional and global security issues will also be discussed during a restricted session.

The timing is significant because Moldova has moved considerably further along the accession process during 2026.

In June, the EU formally opened negotiations on the Fundamentals cluster, which covers the rule of law, fundamental rights, democratic institutions, public administration and economic criteria. Progress in that cluster determines the overall pace of accession negotiations.

EU Today described that step as the point at which the accession bids of Moldova and Ukraine moved from political commitment to a practical rule-of-law test.

A second step followed in July when negotiations began on the External Relations cluster. That part of the process covers commercial policy, development co-operation and alignment with the EU’s common foreign, security and defence policy, including sanctions.

Moldova is consequently moving beyond the declaration that it has a European future and into negotiations over specific areas of EU law.

That process is taking place under conditions markedly different from previous rounds of enlargement.

Moldova borders Ukraine and has faced persistent Russian political pressure, disinformation campaigns and attempts at electoral interference. Energy vulnerability remains another concern, while the unresolved Transdniestria conflict leaves part of the country outside the effective control of the government in Chișinău and with Russian forces still present.

Security and accession policy have therefore become increasingly difficult to separate.

At the EU-Moldova summit in June, European leaders concentrated on accession, reform implementation and gradual integration into EU structures. The meeting took place only a week after the first negotiating cluster was opened.

EU Today argued at the time that the summit had turned Moldova into a test of whether enlargement can provide practical security and resilience for a candidate country exposed to sustained Russian pressure.

Finance is another component of that policy.

Moldova is benefiting from the EU’s €1.9 billion Reform and Growth Facility, intended to accelerate economic convergence and reforms connected to accession. The Commission’s current Moldova enlargement record shows that a second regular payment of €189 million was delivered in March 2026.

The Association Council will not decide when Moldova joins the European Union. Accession remains conditional on reforms, compliance with membership criteria, completion of negotiations and unanimous approval by the member states.

What Monday’s meeting will show is whether the process is maintaining momentum.

Moldova and Ukraine formally began accession negotiations together in 2024 and entered the first substantive negotiating cluster together this June. The two countries remain politically connected in the EU enlargement debate, although Brussels formally assesses each candidate on its own record.

The next challenge is less ceremonial.

Opening clusters demonstrates political progress. Closing negotiating chapters requires legislation to be adopted, institutions to function and reforms to be enforced beyond their appearance in government programmes.

For Moldova, that work is being undertaken while the country manages Russian pressure, energy security, economic restructuring and domestic political change.

Monday’s Association Council will provide Brussels with its latest opportunity to judge whether those pressures are slowing the accession process or whether Moldova remains capable of moving through the EU’s negotiating machinery.

The party of pro-Russian Bosnian Serb politician Milorad Dodik has emerged as the largest political force in Republika Srpska following Bosnia and Herzegovina’s general election, while several parties supportive of Ukraine and European integration recorded strong results in the country’s Bosniak-Croat Federation.

The Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), led by Milorad Dodik, has emerged as the largest party in Republika Srpska as preliminary results from Bosnia and Herzegovina’s 4 October general election continue to be counted.

The country’s Central Election Commission confirmed that preliminary results were being released following the close of polls on Sunday. The elections covered the state presidency and parliament, the legislatures of both entities and the presidency of Republika Srpska.

According to preliminary projections cited after most votes had been counted, SNSD was heading for 34 seats in the National Assembly of Republika Srpska. Pokret Sigurna Srpska (PSS) was projected to take 12 seats and the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) 11. The Coalition for the State, comprising pro-Bosnian parties based principally in the Federation, was projected to secure two seats.

The result leaves SNSD as the principal political force in the Serb-majority entity despite the removal of Dodik himself from public office.

Dodik was not on the ballot after losing his position as president of Republika Srpska following a criminal conviction for refusing to comply with decisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s international High Representative. EU Today previously reported on the decision to revoke Dodik’s presidential mandate after the conviction became final.

His absence from the ballot did little to remove him from the campaign. Dodik remained the dominant public figure around SNSD and continued to challenge the constitutional arrangements under which Bosnia and Herzegovina has operated since the end of the 1992-95 war.

At his party’s final campaign rally, attended by Russian Ambassador Igor Kalabukhov, Dodik told supporters that Bosnia was “dead” and described it as an “impossible country”.

The comments followed years of disputes between the Republika Srpska leadership, Bosnia’s central institutions and the Office of the High Representative over the division of powers between the entity and the state.

A different result in the Federation

The electoral picture in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the predominantly Bosniak-Croat entity, was markedly different.

With 89.45 per cent of votes counted, preliminary figures put the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) first in the election to the Federation parliament with 30.63 per cent, representing more than 212,000 votes.

The Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SDP) was second with 15.27 per cent and more than 105,000 votes. The coalition centred on the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ BiH) followed with 13.89 per cent, while the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (SBiH) was fourth on 8.97 per cent.

The results illustrate the political differences between Bosnia’s two principal entities, particularly over relations with Russia and Ukraine.

SDA, SDP and SBiH have condemned Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and support Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Western orientation. HDZ BiH also formally supports European integration, although the party has at times co-operated politically with Dodik and SNSD.

Dodik has pursued a markedly different course, maintaining close political relations with Moscow and repeatedly opposing Bosnia joining Western sanctions against Russia.

The second- and third-placed forces in the Republika Srpska parliamentary contest do not present themselves as explicitly pro-Russian parties, but have supported a position of neutrality for Bosnia and Herzegovina over the Russia-Ukraine war.

Bosnia’s post-war political structure

The political divisions are magnified by Bosnia and Herzegovina’s unusually complicated constitutional structure.

The country’s present system was created by the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the Bosnian war in 1995. Bosnia and Herzegovina was preserved as a single sovereign state but divided internally between the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska, alongside the separately administered Brčko District.

The state has a three-member presidency representing Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs, while extensive powers remain with entity, cantonal and local authorities.

The Central Election Commission said 3,414,364 voters were registered for the 2026 general election. Voters elected the three members of the presidency, members of the state parliament, the Federation parliament, the Republika Srpska National Assembly and a series of other entity and cantonal institutions.

The election also marked the first nationwide use of biometric voter identification, ballot scanners and rapid electronic transmission of results. The new election technologies were introduced for the 2026 vote after the election authorities determined that the necessary technical requirements had been met.

Turnout, however, fell sharply compared with the previous general election, adding another element to the political picture facing the incoming administrations.

EU accession and the Dodik problem

The results matter beyond Bosnia because the country remains an EU candidate while its internal political disputes have repeatedly complicated its European course.

Bosnia and Herzegovina was granted candidate status in December 2022, and EU leaders subsequently agreed in March 2024 to open accession negotiations. The EU accession process remains dependent on further reforms, including measures concerning the judiciary, democratic institutions, public administration and the rule of law.

Disputes involving Republika Srpska have become one of the principal complications in that process.

Dodik has repeatedly questioned the authority of state institutions and the international High Representative, while also advocating greater autonomy for Republika Srpska. His opponents have accused him of pursuing policies that threaten Bosnia’s post-Dayton constitutional order; Dodik argues that he is defending powers granted to Republika Srpska under the peace agreement.

The 4 October election has therefore produced two distinctly different political landscapes.

In Republika Srpska, SNSD remains the largest force despite the legal exclusion of its leader from public office. In the Federation, several of the strongest parties favour closer European integration and have openly supported Ukraine following Russia’s invasion.

How those forces combine at state level will determine whether Bosnia and Herzegovina can advance reforms required for EU membership or returns to the institutional confrontations that have repeatedly slowed its progress towards Brussels.

EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič and Chinese commerce minister Wang Wentao are meeting in Beijing on Thursday (8 October) to discuss China’s growing trade surplus with the EU.

The surplus reached a record €360.6bn in 2025, up 15 percent from 2024, and widened another 10 percent in the first four months of this year.

The visit follows a meeting in Brussels in June, where Šefčovič said he wanted the dialogue to deliver tangible results by October, and the two sides set up working groups on trade balance, export controls, intellectual property and WTO reform. China has sent mixed signals, with Beijing reportedly showing openness to purchase agreements for European goods and possibly lower tariffs, while China’s commerce ministry insisted Brussels should not treat China as the source of the EU’s problems.

The EU put tariffs on Chinese electric cars in 2024, with extra duties ranging from 7.8 percent to 35.3 percent depending on the manufacturer. But hybrids weren’t covered, and Chinese hybrid exports to the EU jumped from 3,800 vehicles in October 2024 to roughly 50,000 in July 2026, adding to pressure on European carmakers already struggling to compete with Chinese manufacturers.

Šefčovič will also be hoping to secure assurances from his Chinese counterpart on access to rare earths and minerals for European companies, with a one-year moratorium on extra restrictions on rare earth and minerals exports from China – which also applies to the United States – due to expire in the coming weeks. In June, China assured Šefčovič that existing controls on rare earths and permanent magnets would not disrupt EU supply chains.

Meanwhile, there have been reports of some German companies stockpiling rare earths in case the Šefčovič-Wentao talks fail to break the deadlock and China imposes new export controls in retaliation for the EU’s ‘Made in Europe’ plan to protect its industrial supply chain.

If the Beijing talks fail, Germany and France could push for tougher measures at next week’s EU leaders’ summit, including a cap on Chinese hybrid-car exports, preference for European vehicles in public procurement and tighter limits on Chinese takeovers of European companies.

But China recently said it would “respond firmly” if the EU imposed restrictions on Chinese businesses or products.

Long-delayed accession reforms

In Strasbourg on Tuesday (6 October), the European Commission is expected to present its long-delayed pre-enlargement policy reviews to prepare the 27-nation bloc for the integration of candidate countries like Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova.

EU capitals fear that enlargement could disrupt businesses and that new member states could use their veto to block decisions.

In response, the commission proposal is set to rely less on consensus and more on majority voting, including in sensitive areas such as security and defence, sanctions, human rights and enlargement itself – a change that could help speed up bids such as Ukraine’s.

Ironically, to get rid of unanimity in certain votes, von der Leyen’s proposal will need the unanimous approval of all 27 member states.

The text is also expected to set temporary limits on new members’ vetoes, longer safeguard periods, and cut the number of commissioners to two-thirds of the number of member states, with equal rotation.

Alongside the internal rules review, the commission is expected to unveil a revision of the standardisation regulation to fix gaps and increase transparency.

On Monday (5 October), EU chief diplomat Kaja Kallas will host Moldovan PM Vasile Tofan in Brussels for a regular meeting on the progress of the country’s association bid. 

The Eurogroup will also meet on Thursday in Luxembourg while EU financial ministers will meet on Friday.

Plenary week

In Strasbourg next week, MEPs are expected to condemn the results of the Russian State Duma election in which no party opposing Putin’s war on Ukraine was allowed to stand.

On Wednesday, they will debate priorities for the EU budget for 2028-2034 (the Multiannual Financial Framework – MFF) with signals of more money for Erasmus+.

And MEPs will vote on Tuesday on whether to inject €115m into a pilot programme to accelerate the development of military technologies called Agile. This comes as Putin escalates hybrid warfare against Europe.

Controversy is expected ahead of a vote to scrutinise the funding and political influence of Islamist groups in Europe. European Conservative and Reformists (ECR) have previously called for the Muslim Brotherhood to be considered terrorists.

Those feeling stressed in their jobs can look forward to mental health protections for workers if parliament votes to ask the commission to propose new rules for EU employers.

Portuguese prime minister Luís Montenegro will deliver a speech on Tuesday.

And a debate with Ursula von der Leyen and the Irish Council presidency will shape priorities for the EU summit later this month, 15-16 October.

Plenary talks will also address the migrant surge in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta this summer and how Europe should respond.

This article was updated