"I believe taking in large, poor countries such as Ukraine, Belarus or Turkey would destroy the EU. I think it is impossible to envisage membership [in these cases]. These countries should seriously be offered a privileged partnership, but it is a path into ruin of the EU to work towards membership. Such a large EU would not be governable anymore; too many differences within would make consensus impossible, and the economic disparities are too big as well. The burden on the current member states would be too immense to expected from the populations. It is a fundamental mistake to see the question of EU enlargement primarily from a foreign policy angle. As shown by the referenda on the EU constitution, approval of the EU is a function of people's life circumstances, and these would be negatively influenced by the accession of large, poor, countries."

(Alpbach News, 23 August 2005)

Ewald Nowotny is a Viennese economist, a former deputy director of the European Investment Bank, and a former social democratic MP