Montenegro has the region’s closest match to the European Union’s average living standard, at 69% of the EU level, but would need 32 years to catch up if it continues at its current pace, a study presented at a conference found. The research measures the country’s distance from EU standards and averages, highlighting areas where progress is slow or the gap is widening.
Prepared by Institute Alternative and the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw), the analysis uses nearly 50 indicators across eight areas: the economy, social policy, health, education, the environment, governance, digitalisation and infrastructure. Marko Sošić of Institute Alternative presented the findings, which show that the country’s relatively strong position on living standards does not translate into similarly fast convergence across all sectors.
In the economy, Montenegro would need 21 years to reach the EU average at its present pace, the study found. Sošić said incomes were increasing but productivity was not following the same upward trend. He also said it would take more than 100 years for Montenegro to reach the EU average in investment in fixed assets if the current pace continued.
That investment gap sits alongside structural challenges identified in the economic pillar. Sošić cited inequality and poverty despite economic growth, while the study recorded an increase in Montenegro’s risk-of-poverty rate during 2025. The findings distinguish rising incomes from broader progress in productivity and living conditions, with the poverty indicator moving in the opposite direction.
Uneven progress across public services
Social protection presents a mixed picture. Montenegro performs better than the EU average on some indicators, including the employment gender gap, according to the research. But that does not remove the inequality and poverty concerns Sošić identified elsewhere in the economic and social picture.
In health, Montenegro is among the region’s best-positioned countries, Sošić said, but it remains significantly behind on service capacity. The indicators he cited include the number of hospital beds and doctors. Gordana Đurović, a professor and representative of the Montenegrin Pan-European Union, said the health assessment would benefit from further methodological development, including replacing or adding indicators to provide a more objective measure of the quality of health services.
Education indicators for Montenegro are relatively high overall, but North Macedonia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are closer to the EU average, the study found. Sošić said Montenegro’s PISA test results remained chronically poor despite progress made that year, leaving the country behind all others in the region on that measure.
At the current rate, Montenegro would need 100 years to reach the EU average in the area measured by those test results, Sošić said. Meanwhile, enrolment of young people in higher education is falling, moving the country further from the EU average. The study therefore points to different pressures within education: weak test performance and declining higher-education participation, despite relatively high values across the broader set of indicators.
Pre-school enrolment is one of Montenegro’s stronger education indicators, but the analysis also identifies marked disparities. Children from minority communities are underrepresented, while access is more difficult for children in the north and in rural areas. The findings describe a positive national indicator alongside gaps in who can access early education.
Environmental protection is among the region’s weakest areas, according to Sošić. The share of renewable energy was the only environmental indicator he identified as positive for Montenegro. The country’s performance on the use of waste that is not sent to landfill was among the worst, he said, and Montenegro was moving further away from the EU on that measure.
Sošić estimated that, following current trends, Montenegro would not reach the EU average in environmental protection even within 100 years. In governance, meanwhile, the indicator covering the stability, predictability and quality of regulation had deteriorated, putting Montenegro further from the EU average. The research thus records setbacks in both environmental performance and the regulatory environment, rather than a uniform pattern of convergence.
Digitalisation is another weak point: Montenegro ranks at the bottom of the regional table, Sošić said. Better results come from businesses and individuals, while state e-services are among the region’s poorest. In infrastructure, Montenegro is among the region’s worst-positioned countries. It is not moving further from the EU average in that area, but is approaching it very slowly, and would need more than 100 years to align at the current pace.
Membership and partial integration scenarios
Ana Milinković, a representative of the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, presented four scenarios for EU accession: full membership, access to EU funds, access to the single market and institutional reforms. Her analysis found that full EU membership accelerates convergence the most, while partial integration scenarios can also make a substantial contribution in particular areas.
In digitalisation, where exports of IT services are significant, access to the single market has approximately the same effect on convergence as full membership, Milinković said. Infrastructure and education remain problematic even under the most favourable scenario if nothing changes, she added, a pattern present in almost the entire region.
“EU membership makes a difference, but what our authorities do at home is also very important,” Milinković said. Her assessment linked the benefits of closer integration with domestic action, while the scenario analysis showed that sectoral gaps would not automatically disappear under the most favourable accession path.
Growth figures and long-term capacity
The economic part of the convergence analysis covers 2021 to 2025. Maja Baćović, a professor at the Faculty of Economics, said Montenegro recorded real gross domestic product growth of 13.5% in 2021. She cautioned that the increase did not reflect a genuine expansion of capacity and production, but was largely a return to the starting point in 2019 after the pandemic.
Baćović said the exceptionally high growth in 2021 could make the average annual growth rate for the five-year period appear stronger than the country’s longer- or medium-term performance. She also said Montenegro had used two exceptionally intensive economic policy measures during that period, both involving administrative increases in wages. The study’s longer-term convergence results, she said, should be considered against that backdrop.
Baćović identified capital, a skilled workforce, infrastructure, innovation, institutions and digitalisation as foundations for long-term economic development. Montenegro remains quite far from the EU average in those areas, she said. “You cannot base any country’s long-term economic prosperity on consumption growth,” Baćović said, describing the report as a warning for the long-term development of Montenegro’s economy and urging economic policymakers to take it seriously.
Accession expectations and business concerns
Đurović said Montenegro had closed 21 negotiating chapters. She said businesses were concerned about the adoption of stricter European standards, whether the “Euromodel” would survive 1 January, and the further two years until the first day of membership. She also raised the question of whether a significant share of micro-enterprises could face reductions in staffing as a consequence of the model intended to raise the living standards of the average worker or citizen.
EU membership brings more benefits than costs, Đurović said, while acknowledging that the first year is turbulent and challenging for the private sector. During the second year and gradually over the medium term, companies become involved, partnerships form, the number of projects increases and the country’s capacity to absorb them grows, she said. Those effects, in her assessment, contribute to positive results from membership.
Bilsana Bibić, a representative of the Open Society Foundation, said Montenegro was closing negotiating chapters rapidly and that the end of negotiations was coming into view. She described Montenegro as perhaps the closest of the six Western Balkan countries to the EU living standard, while saying the study did not contradict positive news from Brussels but represented the other half of the same story.
“Being a regional leader is not the same as reaching the finish line,” Bibić said. The study’s estimates place that distance at 32 years for living standards at the current pace, with longer timelines in several sectors and setbacks in some indicators.
