Poland vetoed the launch of talks between the European Union and Russia on a new partnership agreement on Thursday over a meat dispute, casting a shadow over a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Warsaw blocked consensus on a negotiating mandate, spurning a compromise offered by the EU's Finnish presidency on a statement demanding an urgent lifting of Moscow's ban on imports of Polish meat and some other food products.
"Unfortunately we were not able to finalise the work today," Finnish EU ambassador Eikka Kosonen told a news conference after envoys ended two days of wrangling on a negotiating mandate without agreement.
The Polish move, dramatising latent hostility between Warsaw and its former Soviet master, was a political embarrassment for the EU, which will be unable to speak with a single voice at the summit with Putin in Helsinki on Friday. However, Polish officials insisted the matter was not closed and there was still time to reach agreement before the summit.
"There is time until tomorrow. My optimism is a little bit lower but I am still optimistic," Polish Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga said in Oslo just before Finland called an end to the haggling.
EU officials sought to play down the damage, insisting there were plenty of other issues on the summit agenda and the existing 10-year-old agreement with Moscow, due to expire at the end of the year, would remain in force as long as needed.
The strategic partnership agreement is due to cover energy, trade, political co-operation, human rights and migration. Russia supplies about 30 percent of the EU's energy.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso tried in vain to woo Poland to overcome the blockage. A Commission spokesman said Barroso telephoned Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski late on Wednesday and promised he would ask Putin at the summit to lift the embargo "as a matter of urgency".
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