Austria has proposed an intermediate step for Ukraine to precede candidate status for EU membership.

 Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer has stated the need to create a European Preparatory Zone, an intermediate step between cooperation and full accession to the EU, which will allow Ukraine and Moldova to move closer to EU standards.At the same time, Nehammer claims that he supports Ukraine’s accession to the EU but opposes accelerated accession. In his opinion, this requires removing emotions from the current debate and applying the same standards used with other contenders from the Western Balkans. Therefore, in his view, Ukraine’s full accession as soon as possible is “unrealistic”.