Poland to send ambassador to EU president Portugal

WARSAW, July 12 (Reuters) Poland will appoint an ambassador to EU president Portugal ahead of a key European Union meeting, filling the post left vacant for nearly six months, a senior Polish lawmaker said today.

Poland has been without many of its ambassadors since Prime Minister Kaczynski took office in 2006 and sacked those appointed by predecessors. There are currently 27 embassies without ambassadors.

The prime minister and his twin brother Lech, the president, have often clashed with EU partners and show little fondness for foreign affairs. Opponents say their failure to appoint envoys has undermined the ex-communist state's interests.

The new ambassador to Lisbon will start work two weeks before a meeting of EU governments, where Poland is again expected to be at loggerheads with other countries over its demands for changes to a new treaty for the bloc.

Poland's ambassador will be career diplomat Katarzyna Skorzynska, said Pawel Zalewski who heads the parliamentary foreign affairs committee. Portugal currently holds the EU presidency.

Poland expects confrontation at the upcoming EU meeting over its demand for further discussion of the voting system in the treaty designed to reform the bloc's institutions, which was agreed at a summit in Brussels last month.

The Polish prime minister has said Warsaw believes it won an agreement enabling countries to delay EU decisions by up to two years if they are just short of enough votes to block them.

But EU leaders say any postponement was clearly agreed for only until the next EU summit, a maximum of four months. They have said repeatedly that there can be no resumption of talks on the matter.

REUTERS AM VV2153