The European Commission's annual progress report on Montenegro, published on November 9th, was sufficiently positive for the Commission to be able to issue a recommendation that Montenegro should be granted the status of a candidate for EU membership. However, the Commission recommended that the applicant needed to implement further reforms before EU accession talks could get under way. The Commission praised Montenegro's good track record in the implementation of economic reforms and a broad domestic consensus on the fundamentals of economic policy. The report acknowledged the role of privatisation and the abolition of price controls in the establishment of conditions for the functioning of a market economy, and it commended the steps taken to improve the business environment, which had attracted sizeable foreign direct investment (FDI). The Commission assessed the Montenegrin economy as being very open, as manifested by the high volume of foreign trade and FDI and by the high degree of integration with the economies of the EU and the rest of the western Balkan region.

However, the Commission noted that Montenegro needed to address a number of internal and external imbalances before it could be considered as a functioning market economy. In particular, the report pointed to the weaknesses of the financial sector, which had been exposed by the global financial crisis, and it called for the strengthening of the regulation and supervision of the Montenegrin banking sector. Addressing the issue of the persistently high level of unemployment, the report argued that this should be tackled by relaxing some labour market rigidities and by reforms in Montenegro's educational and vocational training systems. Among the other weaknesses that the Commission highlighted were the insufficient development of the energy and transport infrastructure and the existence of a large informal sector, which has a negative impact on the business environment.