EU candidate countries acquis alignment dataset (2020-2025)

This dataset translates the European Commission's annual qualitative assessments of candidate countries' preparedness for EU membership into a structured panel dataset covering eight EU candidate countries between 2020 and 2025. The underlying information is collected from the Commission's annual enlargement reports, where assessments are presented in narrative form and collated into individual country reports.  

Each country’s enlargement report contains a methodological note referring to the sources used, including contributions from the government of the candidate country, EU incumbent countries, European Parliament reports and various international and non-governmental organisations. It also includes the results of comparative assessments and indices produced by other stakeholders, particularly on the rule of law (European Commission, 2025).

To facilitate comparative analysis, the Commission's qualitative preparedness assessments are converted into numerical scores ranging from 0 (early stage of preparation) to 100 (well advanced), allowing comparisons across countries, policy areas and years.

Countries covered:

• Albania  
• Bosnia and Herzegovina  
• Georgia  
• Moldova  
• Montenegro  
• North Macedonia  
• Serbia  
• Ukraine  

Period covered: 2020–2025. For Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, the dataset covers the full 2020–2025 period. For Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, coverage begins in 2023, following their inclusion in the European Commission's enlargement reporting after obtaining EU candidate status.

For the first assessment of the results from this dataset, see Dabrowski and Louro (2026).

Source

European Commission Enlargement Package and Country Reports (2020–2025), https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/commission-reports-progress-aspiring-eu-members-2025-11-04_en

Note

The numerical scores reported in this dataset are based on the authors' coding of the European Commission's qualitative assessments and are intended to facilitate comparative analysis across countries and over time.

References

European Commission (2025) ‘Serbia 2025 Report’ Commission Staff Working Document, SWD(2025) 755 final, available at https://enlargement.ec.europa.eu/document/download/6e68ce26-b95b-48e1-921a-c60c12da8f00_en?filename=serbia-report-2025.pdf