BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — The European Union will look for new ways to speed up the membership process for six candidate countries from the Western Balkans at an upcoming summit, European Council President Antonio Costa said on Thursday.
Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro have been seeking to join the bloc for years but are yet to complete the merit-based process. The EU has recently sought to encourage reform in the candidate nations, fearing the growing influence of Russia and China.
Costa said at a news conference in Serbia’s capital Belgrade that “if you want to boost the trust between each other, we cannot create this feel of frustration" over apparent slow progress toward membership. It doesn't mean it will be easier, Costa added, “but it means how we can deliver together more rapidly.”
The summit on Friday in the Montenegrin coastal town of Tivat will gather top European leaders and officials from the candidate countries. They are all at different stages, with Montenegro and Albania leading the way.
Candidate countries must bring their laws into line in 35 policy areas or “chapters,” ranging from justice standards to farm and fishing rules. All 27 EU members must agree before each chapter can be opened, and then again for it to be closed.
The EU has also said Serbia and Kosovo must normalize relations in order for their membership applications to progress.
Kosovo was a Serbian province until NATO’s 78-day bombing campaign in 1999 ended a war between Serbian government forces and ethnic Albanian separatists. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence, proclaimed in 2008.
Costa said that “tomorrow the European leaders will discuss with the leaders of the Western Balkans how we can improve our methodology to move forward faster and better.”
“The enlargement is not a utopia but it is something that could be real in the coming years,” Costa insisted. “For this we need to work harder and faster.”
Costa on Thursday wrapped his pre-summit tour of the Western Balkan candidate nations before traveling to Montenegro. He told Serbian populist President Aleksandar Vucic that his government must boost democratic reform and align its foreign policies with those of the EU in order to move forward.
Serbia has been warned it could lose access to around 1.5 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in EU funds if it fails to halt democratic backsliding, including in the judiciary. It has also been told to improve media freedom and the conditions for free and fair elections.
Ukraine and Moldova also are seeking to join the EU, along with the Western Balkan countries.
Serbia remains the only European nation that has not imposed sanctions on Russia because of the war in Ukraine and maintains friendly ties with Moscow, as well as China where Vucic recently traveled.
“We want and we are ready to do more,” Costa said. “But let me be clear, the pace of progress depends on Serbia’s own resolve.”
Increasingly authoritarian Vucic has faced continued youth-led street protests that first started in November 2024 after a train station accident in the country's north killed 16 people. He pledged on Thursday to push the reform with “new enthusiasm” and keep Serbia on the EU path.
Vucic travels to Tivat a day after Montenegro banned 87 Serbs from entering the country, citing security concerns. The men had communication equipment and banners reading “Serbia wins,” police said. Vucic uses the slogan in his public appearances.
It was not immediately clear why the men had traveled to Montenegro.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, right, shakes hands with European Council President Antonio Costa prior to their meeting at the Serbia Palace in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
European Council President Antonio Costa listens to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic during a news conference at the Serbia Palace in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
European Council President Antonio Costa speaks during a news conference with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic at the Serbia Palace at the Serbia Palace in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
BEIRUT (AP) — Hezbollah on Thursday rejected the latest ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Lebanese government, and the militant group demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon as more fighting there hampered efforts to end the Iran war.
The Hezbollah announcement came as Israeli strikes killed at least four people, according to local authorities, and a U.N. peacekeeper was killed in the crossfire.
Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem, in a written statement read on TV, called the negotiations “absurd, humiliating and insulting.” He said the agreement’s demand that Hezbollah fighters leave southern Lebanon under fire would mean “surrender, defeat and achieving the enemy’s goals.”
“What we are concerned about is an end to the aggression, ceasefire and Israel’s withdrawal,” he said, underscoring that Hezbollah has not made any commitment to stop fighting. “So long as our villages are not safe and are being bombed and destroyed and our people are killed," he said, northern Israel “will not be safe.”
The fighting in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south, threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit point for oil and gas. Its closure has jolted the world economy.
Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extend to Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections later this year, wants to press ahead with Israel’s offensive until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who faced a rare rebuke from Congress on Wednesday, has sought to downplay the diplomatic deadlock and the failure of declared ceasefires to end the fighting. He told reporters that in the Middle East that "a ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”
A Serbian peacekeeper was killed and two others were wounded when a mortar struck their location near Marjayoun, a Christian-majority town that has seen intense fighting, according to the U.N. mission in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, and the Serbian Defense Ministry.
Israel later blamed Hezbollah for the firing that killed the U.N. peacekeeper, without offering evidence. Hezbollah and the U.N. did not immediately comment on who launched the shells.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said a drone strike killed a motorcyclist and wounded four people in the village of Maaroub. It said airstrikes on the village of Sohmor in the Bekaa Valley, in eastern Lebanon, killed three people and wounded others. It also reported airstrikes elsewhere in the south.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has warned people not to go into parts of southern Lebanon where it says it is striking Hezbollah facilities.
Hezbollah resumed rocket fire days after Israel and the United States launched their surprise Feb. 28 attack on Iran, which backs Hezbollah. Before then, Israel had regularly carried out strikes in Lebanon against what it said were militant targets, often killing civilians, despite an earlier truce reached in 2024.
Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, acknowledged Thursday that the ongoing war was straining northern Israeli towns living under the threat of Hezbollah fire. He said Israel's operations in Iran and Lebanon had “created a new security reality,” by weakening Iran and Hezbollah “to an unprecedented degree.”
After Hezbollah's rocket and drone attacks resumed, Israeli troops seized around a fifth of Lebanon, pushing further into the country's south than at any time since the end of Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation.
In the southern city of Sidon, residents reacted to Wednesday's ceasefire announcement with skepticism, saying previous agreements had failed to stop the violence.
“Every few days a ceasefire is announced, but people keep getting killed,” said Mayada Hijazi.
“It’s all talk and no action,” said Salah Nassab. “We keep going back to our homes, and then we get displaced again, back and forth. We’re very tired."
More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon, and over 1.2 million have been displaced. The fighting has killed 27 Israeli soldiers and three civilians.
The latest declared ceasefire came about through U.S.-brokered talks between Israel and Lebanon's government, which accuses Hezbollah of dragging the country into war and had made efforts to disarm it before the latest hostilities.
The ceasefire agreement calls for Lebanon's armed forces to take control of security zones in Lebanon from which the militants would be banned.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Thursday called the new agreement "the last chance to enter a final and comprehensive ceasefire.” He said Lebanon was ready to implement Wednesday's deal once he receives responses from relevant factions in Lebanon, including Hezbollah. The United States — and Trump himself — would determine how and when the deal is implemented, Aoun told journalists.
The agreement terms Hezbollah “an enemy" of Israel, the U.S. and Lebanon and calls for dismantling it. The government has promised to do so in the past but does not have the capabilities to disarm Hezbollah by force.
The latest agreement did not say when Israel would withdraw from southern Lebanon but said the U.S. would support the Lebanese army as it works to assert control in areas where Hezbollah has long wielded power.
A top Iranian general on Thursday reiterated Tehran's demand for a full ceasefire in Lebanon and called for Israel to pull troops back to where they were when the wider war began. At that time, Israel held five strategic points along the border.
“Supporting the resistance in Lebanon is the duty of all of us, and eliminating Israel from the region is an achievable goal for Muslims,” Esmail Qaani, the head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies.
As diplomatic efforts have repeatedly faltered, Iran and the U.S. have traded fire in and around the Strait of Hormuz, which remains effectively closed. Before the war, around a fifth of the world's oil and gas, as well as large shipments of fertilizer and other goods, passed through the narrow waterway.
The U.S. has targeted what it says are Iranian threats to commercial shipping and its own forces, while Iran has launched missile and drone attacks on Gulf states hosting U.S. troops.
Israeli troops gather on the border with Lebanon in northern Israel, Thursday June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Israeli troops gather on the border with Lebanon in northern Israel, Thursday June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Israeli soldiers drive in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Thursday June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Smoke rises near the Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Thursday June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
An Israeli flag hangs on a destroyed building in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Thursday June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
