Brussels - European Union leaders reached a compromise Friday on how much money to offer developing countries to help them fight climate change. The agreement, reached at a summit in Brussels, was viewed by participants as a milestone in the bloc's efforts to seize the initiative in United Nations climate change talks due to start in Copenhagen in December.
But the compromise only came after leaders delayed a key debate on how to split the resulting bill between themselves until after the Copenhagen meeting.
"I am happy to say that we managed to reach an agreement. The EU now has a very strong negotiating position" for Copenhagen, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, who brokered the deal, said.
Sweden currently holds the EU's rotating presidency.
The EU's 27 national leaders endorsed estimates by the European Commission, the EU's executive, that rich nations will have to offer developing countries around 100 billion euros (147 billion dollars) per year by 2020, Reinfeldt said.
Western governments would pay between 22 billion and 50 billion euros towards that sum.
That puts the EU "in a position which encourages others to deliver," especially the United States, Reinfeldt said.
"We can look other (countries) in the eye and say that we have done our job," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso agreed.
Reinfeldt was due to meet US President Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday at an EU-US summit where climate change was expected to top the agenda.
EU leaders also agreed that the bloc should offer part of a global total of 5-7 billion euros per year to developing countries over the next three years to help kick-start a transition towards a greener economy and to convince them to pledge greenhouse gas emissions cuts in Copenhagen.
But in a concession to Eastern European member states, EU leaders agreed that only countries which can afford to do so will contribute to the overall total over the next three years.
Reinfeldt said he agreed to the proposal after obtaining assurances that the EU's richer states would raise enough money on their own.
The breakthrough came after Germany dropped its objections to the EU mentioning concrete figures ahead of Copenhagen. Germany had urged the EU to keep its cards close to its chest for tactical reasons.
"By defining what we need in order to call (Copenhagen) a success, we are running a risk, because we are no longer leaving all possible outcomes open," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after the meeting.
On the issue of how to share the bill, national leaders failed to reach an agreement amid a bitter row between Eastern and Western member states.
The commission wanted EU states to agree to a common formula for calculating the bill based on each country's income and greenhouse gas emissions.
But Poland and eight other Eastern European states rejected the proposal, saying that wealth should be the only criterion used.
The nine have below-average income but above-average emissions.
A formula will be found taking into account each country's ability to pay, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said. Climate experts were tasked with hammering out the details.
Barroso said the matter would only have to be decided "after a successful outcome in Copenhagen is reached."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said EU leaders had reaffirmed their commitment to cut their emissions by at least 20 per cent below 1990s levels in a bid to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels.
