Brussels - The European Union will stick to its goal of agreeing to a deal on fighting climate change in December despite threatened vetoes by Poland and Italy, French President Nicolas Sarkozy insisted Wednesday. "We can't question our (climate) goals, they have to stand, and the timetable has to stand. We have to find a position before January," Sarkozy, who currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, said after the first day of an EU summit in Brussels.
"If we scale back our targets, if we change the deadlines, we'll count for nothing. If some people want Europe to count for nothing, let them say so."
Sarkozy's stance sets up a confrontation with EU heavyweight Italy and middleweight Poland, together with seven Central and Eastern European countries, who on Wednesday harshly criticized the EU's plans for fighting climate change.
In March 2007, EU leaders pledged to cut the bloc's emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.
The EU's executive, the European Commission, in January proposed laws to put that pledge into effect, giving each country a target for cutting emissions based on its CO2 output in 2005.
Officials in Brussels and Paris said that they wanted the bloc's leaders to reach final agreement on the proposals at a December summit.
The urgency stems from the EU's desire to reach a deal before crucial international climate talks in December 2009 in Copenhagen.
On Wednesday, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said that his country would veto a summit declaration on climate change if it included a commitment to reaching a deal in December, as Sarkozy had proposed.
"Poland is ready to veto if there are attempts to force us to accept the climate-change package in the next month,"
