Further expansion of the 25-member European Union would help the bloc compete with emerging powers like China, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Saturday in an interview.

"I think Europe is not big enough the way it is. Anyone who looks at China understands why," he told Unica, the magazine supplement of weekly Portuguese newspaper Expresso.

"Sometimes I say Europe needs a more realistic dimension, that is to say a bigger one, because we are in the 21st century and the big challenge is globalization," the former centre-right Portuguese prime minister added.

The EU took in ten new members, mostly former Communist countries from Eastern Europe, in May 2004.

Romania and Bulgaria, which were left out of last year's "big bang" EU expansion, are due to join the bloc in 2007 while nations further east like the Ukraine and Turkey are looking to join as well.

"After a year and a half of this enlargement, I consider it to have been a success. These countries brought a new energy, new ideas, and they have been loyal members of the Union," Barroso said.

"Does anyone sincerely believe that even the biggest EU member states will always have strength and influence on their own to discuss issues on an equal footing with our American friends or emerging powers like China or India?" he added.

The European Union will have a population of around 500 million once Romania and Bulgaria enter the bloc while China currently has around 1.3 billion.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Tuesday it expected China to keep producing growth rates of nine percent a year.

By comparison it said the eurozone, made up of the 12 nations which adopted the euro currency, is heading for economic growth of 1.4 percent this year.