Both Turkey and Serbia have much more to do if their ambitions of joining the EU are to succeed, officials have said at top level meetings in Luxembourg.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn urged Turkey to open transport links with Cyprus, as promised, and to speed up political reforms.
He said this could be "the last window of opportunity... perhaps for years".
Meanwhile, the UN's chief war crimes prosecutor said Serbia was still not co-operating over war crimes suspects.
Top EU officials were holding separate meetings with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and the Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.
The meetings come just weeks before the EU issues key reports on both states' progress in meeting conditions for membership.
Crisis looms
On Turkey, Mr Rehn urged the country to take further steps on reform "before the report is published on 8 November".
The EU wants the Turkish penal code to be changed to ensure greater freedom of expression.
Mr Rehn warned that failing to make concessions over Cyprus could also harm Turkey's chances.
Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja is conducting behind-the-scenes negotiations to get Ankara to open its ports to Greek Cypriot ships in exchange for lifting an EU trade embargo on Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus.
Cyprus and Greece are insisting that Ankara make the first move, says the BBC's Oana Lungescu in Luxembourg.
Otherwise there is a serious risk that accession talks could be at least partially suspended by the end of the year, she says.
But the mood music seems much more positive than expected, she adds, with both Mr Gul and Mr Tuomioja sounding confident that a solution can be found.
Negative assessment
Meanwhile, Serbia has faltered while taking its first step on the long road to EU membership, our correspondent says.
The resumption of talks on an association agreement - which were frozen last May - depends on Belgrade delivering top war crimes suspect General Ratko Mladic to the international tribunal in The Hague.
But the tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, arrived in Luxembourg saying she had "nothing" positive to report on Serbia's progress "because Mladic is not in The Hague".
There is also concern about the forthcoming referendum on the new Serbian constitution, which describes the breakaway province of Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia.
The EU will urge Belgrade to refrain from any unilateral act that could delay or block a United Nations plan for the final status of Kosovo, which is widely expected to lead to some form of independence.
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