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The sensitive debate over the European Union's future was set to resurface Thursday amid new calls for the bloc to hold off on admitting more members until it tackles public disenchantment with the EU and its constitution.

At talks before the opening of the EU summit, Bavarian Governor Edmund Stoiber called on EU leaders and foreign ministers to heed public opinion, which he said was against expansion to Turkey.

The leading German conservative said future enlargement "had to be accepted by the citizens," and governments "must make clear where the borders of Europe are."

"We must be clear about the absorption capacity" of the EU so that it can take in more countries, said Stoiber, whose Christian Social Union is part of Germany's governing coalition.

Earlier this week, Stoiber said Europeans were still trying to digest the EU's mostly eastward expansion in 2004, and said that EU promises to offer membership to Balkan countries and Turkey had worried people.

The EU opened entry negotiations with Turkey and Croatia last year, but negotiations with Ankara are expected to last at least a decade because of the slew of reforms Turkey has to implement to meet EU political and economic norms.

Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader told reporters Thursday that he hoped his country could conclude negotiations in time for Croatia to join in 2008.

The summit debate will focus on trying to find new ways to resurrect a sense of public optimism about European integration despite the growing public dismay and opposition.

Austria has taken the lead in trying to bring back the debate about integration by focusing on the role of European values and the benefits delivered by the EU to its 455 million inhabitants.

Ursula Plassnik, Austria's foreign minister, said on Wednesday she would relaunch debate of the future of the bloc and its constitution at the summit and would chair a foreign ministers discussion on the issue.

Austria, which holds the EU presidency, said one of its goals was for EU leaders to make a final decision on the constitution's fate by June.

French and Dutch voters rejected the draft EU charter nine months ago in referendums. The Dutch government has said it would not present the current draft to a public vote again, despite demands from several nations that it do so. Fourteen other EU nations have approved the charter.

The constitution, drafted over 18 months by a 106-member convention and signed by EU leaders in 2004, aims to bolster the bloc's role on the world stage and streamline the way the EU makes decisions.

It needs unanimous backing from all 25 EU nations to take effect.

Other issues set to spark debate are whether to create a single European energy regulator, which many states oppose, and what place nuclear power should have in Europe's energy mix.

On the wider economic reform agenda, the European Commission is pushing for agreement to create a European Institute of Technology, modeled on the US Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to act as a clearing house for European and private sector investment in research and innovation.

Several countries, including Britain and Germany, have misgivings about the idea, which is only likely to win lukewarm endorsement.

(China Daily March 24, 2006)