France`s Sarkozy Wins Over Wary EU Easterners

At the summit, Sarkozy helped convince the European Commission and other countries that poorer EU members need special treatment.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is wrapping up his six-month presidency of the European Union with new friends among EU newcomers from central and eastern Europe and a stronger position in the region.

Many of the 10, mostly ex-communist countries that joined the bloc in 2004 left the EU summit on Friday deeply grateful for Sarkozy's help in protecting their interest in the final deal on the bloc's plan to fight climate change, diplomats said.

The newcomers, still not fully adjusted for Brussels' bureaucratic ways, also laud Sarkozy's unconventional style that they say allowed the 27-nation bloc to clinch fast deals without endless horse-trading.

"Thanks to his energy and charisma, he was capable of taking decisions in an unconventional manner, not feeling confined by detailed work of the bureaucrats," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told a news conference.

"He has saved the EU from falling even deeper into its bureaucratic routine."

At the summit, Sarkozy helped convince the European Commission and other countries that poorer EU members need special treatment under a costly plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions causing climate change.

The warmth towards the French leader marks a change from the chill in the era of Sarkozy's predecessor, Jacques Chirac. He famously offended many central European countries by saying "they missed a good opportunity to keep quiet" after they backed the United States in its war in Iraq in 2003.

Praises for Sarkozy could be heard at the summit from Lithuanian, Slovak and Bulgarian officials and diplomats.

Some said privately that thanks to Sarkozy, France was strengthening its influence in the region -- perhaps at the expense of Germany, the biggest advocate the EU's expansion before 2004 when France was lukewarm towards the process.

The countries, which belonged to the Soviet bloc before 1989 and are wary of Moscow's new assertiveness in foreign policy, praised Sarkozy's role in helping end a brief war in August between Russia and Georgia, an ex-Soviet republic.

Russia says its military incursion into Georgia was meant to protect people of South Ossetia after Georgia's attack on the breakaway region, but many ex-Soviet countries feel scared.

"Russia's maximum plan was to change authorities in Georgia. In this sense it was his (Sarkozy's) big achievement," Polish President Lech Kaczynski said about the French president's trips to Moscow that helped secure a ceasefire.

"We are grateful, but the EU should show even more solidarity to us," said Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius, whose Baltic republic is dependent on Russian energy supplies. The next EU President will be the Czech Republic -- whose diplomats are already grateful to Sarkozy for having secured the climate deal so they will not have to deal with it