What You Need To Know: The European Commission has produced a damning report on the lack of progress made on issues concerning the rule of law in Serbia.

The annual progress report, seen by RFE/RL, was shared with EU member states in late May and indicates that there has been little or no progress in areas such as the fight against corruption, media freedom, and the functioning and independence of the country's judiciary.

The report tracks the efforts made by Belgrade in EU accession chapters 23 and 24, which deal with how closely an EU candidate country aligns with the bloc's rules and regulations with respect to justice and fundamental rights.

The internal document is produced each spring for Serbia, as well as Montenegro, and always comes halfway between the European Commission's yearly enlargement reports in the autumn, which assess progress across all policy areas in countries seeking EU membership.

Deep Background: The idea is that this document is supposed to guide current member states in assessing how well (or how badly) some countries are doing in what Brussels regards as the two most complicated negotiation blocks.

But while Montenegro is streaming ahead, with the aim of becoming EU member state No. 28 by 2028, Serbia has stood still since late 2021.

This is largely down to the fact that many of the Russia hawks in the bloc are unhappy with Belgrade not aligning with EU sanctions on Moscow since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. There are also doubts about the rule of law in the Balkan country.

And the latest report -- possibly the harshest Brussels has issued on Serbia in years -- will do the country no favors.

What You Need To Know: Rarely does a week go by in Brussels these days without new ideas and proposals for European Union enlargement.

With Ukraine and Moldova set to open accession talks next week, Montenegro aiming to conclude its negotiations this year, and Iceland due to hold a referendum in August on resuming talks suspended more than a decade ago, EU enlargement is no longer an issue that only preoccupies a few European Commission officials and some diplomats from (mainly) eastern member states as has been the case in recent decades.