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The European Parliament is preparing a report that argues in favour of significantly slowing down the process of further enlargement of the EU, warning that hurried expansion will lead to a fragmented Union. Prepared for the foreign affairs committee by German centre-right MEP Elmar Brok, the draft report says: "Further enlargement without adequate consolidation could lead to a Union of multiple configurations, with core countries moving towards closer integration and others lying at its margins."

Enlargement strategy should "be flanked by a more diversified range of external contractual frameworks." Countries could then graduate to more integrated agreements if they fulfilled certain conditions.

Despite the proposal for a stronger political relationship with the EU, the report's emphasis on its own ability to absorb new member states represents a blow to countries such as Ukraine and Georgia which have been strongly lobbying Brussels for hints that they can eventually join the club.

The EU wants the Western Balkans to become as "normal, prosperous and boring" as Scandinavia, with the help of Stabilisation and Association Agreements that EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn hopes to sign soon with all countries in the region, he told the Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday. MEPs and experts also debated "enlargement fatigue", the EU's "absorption capacity", Serbia and Turkey.

Elmar Brok (EPP-ED, DE), who is drafting an EP report on the Commission's 2007 enlargement strategy paper, said that this was "not an attempt to block any further accessions". The EU "needs to see its own limits" if it wants to remain an effective institution, he said, arguing that granting some special status short of enlargement to neighbouring countries would strengthen their European perspective, rather than blocking the possibility of their joining the Union later on.