The EU’s environment and energy ministers have been taking part in an informal summit near Paris. They cheerily signed a mock-up globe but there’s trouble on the real horizon. Insiders say they face the major challenge of balancing western members’ interests with eastern ones, in setting greenhouse gas emissions targets.

Seven of the newer EU states want taken into account the CO2 reduction that came when their former communist economies collapsed. The French EU presidency has said it would not back that.

The European Commission’s proposal is to give poorer states 10 percent of profits from the bloc’s Emissions Trading Scheme, to help cushion the effect some fear an energy and pollution package will have on their growth.

The EU wants to adopt ambitious climate protection measures before it enters international negotiations scheduled for December.

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