Poland has refused to lift its veto on opening EU partnership talks with Russia, on the eve of a summit with President Vladimir Putin, the EU presidency announced Thursday.

The EU-Russia summit on Friday will not launch negotiations for a new framework agreement, said Mikko Norros, spokesman for the Finnish EU presidency.

He explained an EU ambassadors meeting "did not succeed in reaching a compromise".

The presidency had hoped to come up with a formula to persuade Poland to join its 24 EU member state colleagues in backing the start of talks on a new EU-Russia partnership deal ahead of the summit between Putin and EU leaders in Helsinki this Friday.

Poland is blocking the discussions in retaliation for a Russian embargo on Polish meat and plant products and is pushing Moscow into ratifying an energy treaty.

Moscow immediately went on the offensive, saying it would not lift its embargo on Polish meat imports until "problems" linked to the forthcoming accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union are settled.

The Russian authorities had earlier threatened to ban all EU animal product exports from January 2007 over the same issue.

The Russian threat is centred on concerns over swine fever, which remains a problem in Romania and, to a lesser extent, Bulgaria.

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