Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, in Brussels for an EU summit, threatened to use Warsaw's veto to block the European Union plans to tackle climate change if attempts were made to impose the deal.

However British Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged his fellow EU leaders not to abandon their goals to combat climate change in the face of the growing pressures from the global financial woes.

"This is not the time to abandon a climate change agenda which is important for the future," he told reporters in Brussels, ahead of the summit.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk led a pre-summit meeting of eastern European leaders who called on their EU partners to "respect the differences in member states' economic potential," in fixing national goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

In a statement released just ahead of the full EU summit the leaders of three EU Baltic states, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia along with Poland itself stressed that "the Union's climate and energy policy should reconcile environmental objectives and the need for sustainable economic growth."

Last year, EU leaders vowed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020, compared to 1990 levels. They also pledged to have renewable energies make up 20 percent of total energy sources.

But many EU nations have begun to baulk at the costs involved and the consequences to industry of the climate change goals.

The call for special attention to be paid to economic concerns in finalising the climate package, is just what Brussels and other EU member states had feared as the financial crisis takes hold.

"We need to properly evaluate the impact on the real economy," Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini argued Monday.

British PM Brown insisted that "the climate change agenda is part of the solution for many of the problems we face as a global economy," noting that high oil prices and less energy security "makes it more important that we deal with a long-term policy."

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, after talks with Brown, also urged the leaders to press ahead and not abandon Europe's leadership role.

"It is important to understand that climate change is not an optional extra," he said. "It's a challenge, a real challenge that does not disappear because of the financial crisis."

"If we now give any signal that we are not really committed to doing it, others will not have the incentive to do it," he added.

In a draft of conclusions to be released at the end of the summit, the leaders were set to express their "determination" to respect the climate change goals, whose "balance and fundamental parameters" must be respected.

They would also underline their commitment to improving the security of energy supplies in Europe.

No final decision on the climate package, to be discussed over a working dinner in Brussels, was expected Wednesday but the European Commission remains hopeful that it could seal a deal in December.

A European diplomat said the overall goals had not been challenged but that concessions would have to be made to eastern European countries finding it tough to make emission cuts due to a reliance on coal-fired power stations.

For example Poland, dependent on coal-fired power plants for 96 percent of its electricity, is calling on Brussels to increase its carbon dioxide emissions cap for its energy utilities.

Both Poland and Germany are also seeking to ease plans to start auctioning emissions quotas for industry from 2013.

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