The EU will keep its door open to Turkey, Croatia and other countries, but it will take care of its own capacity to integrate new members, Rehn was quoted by the Romanian agency Mediafax as saying at a summit of the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) in Bucharest on Tuesday.
The leaders of ten Southeast European countries gathered in the Romanian capital to expand the CEFTA, designed for Central European countries as a waiting room for EU membership, to include Southeast European countries.
The CEFTA was founded in 1991. It consists only of Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia and Romania after its former members joined the EU in 2004. Today the CEFTA will be joined by and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Moldova and Serbia. On January 1, Bulgaria and Romania will leave the association to join the EU.