Luxembourg - If you want poker players to show you their cards, you have to put your own hand on the table first. That was the philosophy which led the European Union on Wednesday to publish a near-complete set of demands for United Nations climate-change talks in Copenhagen in December, in a bid to make superpowers such as China and the United States follow suit.
But ministers were not able to solve the most difficult questions on the table - leaving open the question of whether their move is anything more than a high-profile bluff.
"There is a tactical argument to say, 'Maybe we should just wait a little more to show our cards,' but there is also a very urgent need for someone to say, 'Yes, we are going to do this,' and also to indicate how exactly are we going to do it," Denmark's climate minister Connie Hedegaard told the German Press Agency dpa.
Hedegaard is set to host the Copenhagen talks.
On Wednesday, EU environment ministers approved a text setting out most of the bloc's demands for Copenhagen.
The 13-page document covers everything from emissions-reduction targets for developed and developing countries to questions of forest management and technology sharing.
Ministers took no pains to hide their glee over what is the most comprehensive climate wish-list of any multinational body to date.
"The EU will maintain its leadership role in the world" because of the agreement, EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said.
The deal "makes us the key to reaching an agreement in Copenhagen," agreed Andreas Carlgren, Sweden's environment minister, who brokered it as current holder of the EU's rotating presidency.
Some of the EU's demands, such as a call for the Copenhagen talks to set legally-binding targets for airlines and shipping companies to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions, are indeed new.
Others, such as a pledge to cut emissions to 80-95 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050, are new for the EU, but echo recommendations by UN climate-change experts.
Still others formalize long-held calls, such as the demand for developed states to join an EU emissions-trading scheme by 2015, and for rising powers to join it by 2020.
Officials said that the EU's policies in those areas have already had an impact on the world's superpowers.
"When the Americans discuss their agreement on Copenhagen or (emissions trading), one big argument is that if they don't do it fast enough, the EU will continue to have the advantage because we had the prudence to move in this direction," Dimas said.
But negotiators for the Copenhagen talks say that the EU has still not managed to play the biggest trump in its hand - and that it will not be able to call other powers' bluffs until it has done so.
That trump, quite simply, is money. Negotiators are adamant that the only way the world's rich countries will get developing states to sign up to climate-change pledges is to offer them massive funding.
But on Tuesday, EU finance ministers spectacularly failed to reach an agreement on how much the bloc should pay developing states to help them fight climate change and which EU countries should foot the bill, in a bitter fight between Eastern and Western states.
EU leaders will now have to take up the question at a summit on October 29-30. EU diplomats say that the debate is likely to be long and bitter, as billions of euros ride on the result and every member state has the right to veto proposals.
But without agreement on the funding question, officials say that the EU's chances of trumping the other players in climate poker will fade to nothing.
"Without money on the table in Copenhagen, we won't be able to reach an agreement," Dimas warned on Wednesday.
That leaves the bloc with just 10 days to put its hand in order - or risk having its leadership bid exposed as an embarrassing bluff.
"What is at stake this week and next week is the question whether the EU wants to keep its position as the driving force in international climate negotiations," Hedegaard said.
