Poland keeps blocking EU-Russia talks

BRUSSELS, Nov 22 (Reuters) Poland today kept the European Union waiting for agreement to launch talks on a new strategic partnership with Russia, demanding stronger EU support in a dispute over a Russian ban on imports of Polish meat.

Diplomats said Warsaw rejected a Finnish EU presidency formula to permit the start of negotiations at a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, but the EU will try again tomorrow.

''There was no agreement tonight and much disappointment. But talks will continue tomorrow,'' one EU diplomat said after ambassadors of the 25-nation bloc spent the entire day waiting for Poland to accept a face-saving formula.

The talks with Russia, which supplies about 30 per cent of the 25-nation bloc's energy, are due to cover trade, investment and human rights as well as energy.

Warsaw had held up consensus on a negotiating mandate, demanding an end to the year-old ban on Polish meat and some other food products by its former Soviet master, which Moscow said was due to the discovery of fake veterinary certificates.

Russia has made no move to lift the embargo, saying that will only come if and when its own veterinary service certifies the problem had been removed.

Earlier, Andrzej Krawczyk, the most senior foreign policy aide to Polish President Lech Kaczynski, told Reuters he was optimistic of a deal by tomorrow, saying the EU presidency proposal had helped narrow the gap.

Finland offered a strong declaration of support from Poland's EU partners, saying the lifting of the embargo is ''a matter of urgency''.

But after keeping EU envoys waiting for hours, Poland came back with an alternative text that was unacceptable to other member states and far removed from the Finnish document, diplomats said.

''I am not so optimistic of a deal tomorrow because the Polish proposal was so far away from ours. Let's hope the night's sleep brings wisdom,'' a Finnish diplomat said.

FRIEND OR FOE? European Commission experts are in Poland to certify that Polish export products are up to EU standards in an effort to convince Moscow to relent. A Commission spokesman said the preliminary findings should be available by the end of the week.

Pawel Swieboda, head of the Warsaw think-tank Demos Europa and a former senior foreign ministry official, said Poland was harming its reputation and gaining little in the stand-off.

''Poland has cemented its image as a country constantly making trouble and a lot of noise. It is getting close to being branded as an unpredictable country,'' he told Reuters.

In an article in the Financial Times, Putin wrote that some in Europe were trying to fit EU-Russian relations into a ''friend or foe'' model, but there should be nothing to fear from growing interdependence between the two sides.

''Such stereotypes have little in common with reality, but their persistent influence on political thinking and practice runs the risk of creating fresh divisions in Europe,'' he said.

The existing cooperation pact expires at the end of the year but is automatically extended until there is a replacement.

''We have no sword of Damocles hanging over us in terms of the timeframe,'' Putin's top EU adviser, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, told a news conference in Moscow.

He said Putin would raise concerns with the EU about the treatment of Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic states.

The EU had not fully met commitments made to Russia when the three former Soviet republics joined the bloc in 2004, he said.

Reuters SBA VP0327