国际英语新闻：Polish PM: Compromise on climate-energy package seems closer

WARSAW, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the prime ministers of nine eastern and central European countries met in Poland's northern city of Gdansk on Saturday to discuss an energy and climate package.

    The meeting occurred a week before an EU summit in Brussels on Dec. 11 and 12, which is expected to adopt an agreement on the package. Decisions at the summit must be taken unanimously, so every country has the right to use a veto.

    "We have started to find solutions bringing us closer to an agreement on the climate-energy package," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in Gdansk on Saturday.

    Tusk made the statement at a press conference, after the meeting between Sarkozy and the prime ministers of the Visegrad Group (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic), Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria and Romania.

    Tusk added that the French president turned out to be a good patron of some countries' fears concerning the economic effects of the package.

    "Much work is still ahead of us but I can declare that all of us are giving a strong mandate to President Sarkozy to represent also our position in order to achieve a good solution for the entire EU," Tusk was quoted as saying by Polish news agency PAP.

    President Sarkozy said that the negotiations on the package had not ended but much progress had been achieved.

    "All countries attending today's meeting have been involved in natural environment protection and want to find a compromise solution," he said.

    All countries want Europe to send a signal to the entire world that it will be acting in accordance with the adopted schedule and goals laid down in 2007, he added.

    With regard to the climate-energy package, Europe must be an example for others. But if it wants to be an example, it must be "reliable," Sarkozy said.

    The French president described the meeting as "useful." "Let me thank all heads of governments who have come to Gdansk. This is an innovative way of conducting talks in Europe," the president stressed.