Outcry as David Cameron says ‘Let’s extend the EU towards Asia’

DAVID Cameron triggered a backlash yesterday after suggesting the European Union should open its doors to new members “from the Atlantic to the Urals”.

By: Alison Little & Martyn Brown

Published: Tue, July 2, 2013

David Cameron wants to see the EU get even bigger

The Prime Minister made the hugely provocative pro-EU speech on the day Croatia became the Union’s 28th member state as he toured the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.

Talking to Kazakh students in the capital Astana he said: “Britain has always supported the widening of the EU.

“Our vision of the EU is that it should be a large trading and co-operating organisation that effectively stretches, as it were, from the Atlantic to the Urals.

“We have a wide vision of Europe and have always encouraged countries that want to join.”

The Urals mark the unofficial border between Europe and Asia in Russia.

His remarks indicate that he believes that Ukraine, once known as the bread basket of the USSR, should be admitted to the EU.

They come as British MPs prepare for a crunch vote on an in/out referendum this Friday.

They also appear to ignore fears about a huge influx of Romanians and Bulgarians when the restrictions on their rights to work in Britain are lifted early next year.

I am sure the thought of hundreds of thousands and millions of Kazakhs and Ukrainians coming to Britain under the EU’s freedom of movement rules will help people decide in an in/out referendum

Douglas Carswell MP

Conservative MP and eurosceptic Douglas Carswell said: “I am sure the thought of hundreds of thousands and millions of Kazakhs and Ukrainians coming to Britain under the EU’s freedom of movement rules will help people decide in an in/out referendum.

“I think the Prime Minister should be talking about swapping places with these countries.

“We leave the EU and they can have our empty space.”

UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage warned that millions of extra migrants would get access to the UK if Mr Cameron’s “dreams” came true.

Ukip leader Farage was quick to criticise David Cameron's 'dreams' of the EU

He said: “People in the past have had dreams of a Europe that stretched from the Atlantic and the Urals.

“It is not a dream that this country, rightly, has ever shared.”

Mr Cameron has been a staunch advocate of Turkey joining the EU and last week welcomed interest by Serbia. Adding Turkey (70 million), Ukraine (45 million), Kazakhstan (17 million), and Serbia (7 million) would add 139 million to the EU’s population.

Coalition tensions also flared yesterday, with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg saying the Lib Dems would always be “the party of ‘in’” in any referendum battle, while the Tories looked increasingly like “the party of ‘out’”.

Lib Dem and Labour MPs are set to abstain on Friday’s Tory backbench bill which require a referendum by the end of 2017.

Meanwhile Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable said yesterday that leaving the EU is “not a realistic economic option for this country”.