The meeting will take place over a lunch hosted by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in the Polish city of Gdansk on Saturday 6 December.
The two leaders will be joined by the prime ministers of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia.
Yesterday (1 December), Tusk made optimistic statements, insisting that the Union was "very close" to a deal on the climate and energy package. Poland was recently offered concessions on the package, triggering fears from some member states that France, which holds the presidency of the European Council until the end of the year, was dismantling some of the basic architecture of the European Commission's original proposal in order to reach a deal before the end of 2008 (EurActiv 27/11/08).
Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia also want to receive greater recognition for efforts already made to reduce CO2 emissions. At the 15 October EU summit, they tabled a joint paper, which states that any EU climate deal "should respect the differences of member states' economic potential" (EurActiv 16/10/08).
Even if he had already reached an agreement with his Polish host Donald Tusk, it is less clear what concessions Sarkozy is prepared to make to the other Eastern European countries. A diplomat from a smaller EU country told EurActiv that a compromise was still expected, because current burden-sharing is considered unfair by the Eastern group.
If no deal is reached at the 11-12 summit, the Czech Republic will inherit the climate change dossier. Although Prague is not particularly active on the file and has not been fighting along with the rest of the Eastern group for special treatment, diplomats said France "absolutely" wanted to close the dossier during its presidency.
Recently, the Polish press even reported that an extraordinary EU summit may be held on 27 December in Brussels to wrap up the climate change deal.
