Spain's acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said adding eight new members to the European Union would create many internal challenges, but noted that Madrid was open to a larger EU. 

The bloc's leaders will discuss its capacity to absorb new members at the meeting in Granada.

Spain holds the EU's rotating presidency until the end of the year.

Eight countries currently have official EU candidate status — Turkey, Ukraine, Moldova, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia — while two, Georgia and Kosovo, are potential candidate countries.

Going through the accession process and eventually joining the bloc takes a lot of reforms and time, and it also requires unanimous decisions by all current members.

It is part of the reason French President Emmanuel Macron set up the European Political Community in 2022.

At the time, Macron said it could take "decades" for Ukraine to join the EU. He argued for a new grouping that "would allow democratic European nations" to "find a new space for political and security cooperation."

The EPC includes 27 countries from the EU and 20 from countries around it. The bloc will discuss the enlargement plan on Friday.