Montenegro, with a population of approximately 620,000 (comparable to Iceland), opened EU accession negotiations in June 2012 — making it the most advanced Western Balkans candidate. As of 2025, all 33 negotiation chapters have been opened but only 3 provisionally closed, illustrating the difficulty of the accession process even for willing candidates. Montenegro's main challenges are rule of law, judicial reform, and organised crime — issues largely irrelevant to Iceland. However, Montenegro's experience shows that small countries face capacity constraints in managing 33 parallel negotiation chapters simultaneously. Montenegro's small civil service struggles with the administrative burden, a challenge Iceland (with an even smaller bureaucracy) would share.