Brussels - European Union leaders were Thursday set to reach a compromise over ambitious plans to fight climate change after the bloc's presidency agreed to take national differences into greater account.

In a concession to Italy, Poland and several other Eastern and Central European countries, leaders agreed to ask the EU presidency and the European Commission "to find appropriate responses to the challenges of applying (the climate) package in a rigorously established cost-effective manner".

Such responses should pay special attention "to each member state's specific situation," the draft states.

The overnight compromise was reached after French President Nicolas Sarkozy responded to veto threats aired by Poland and Italy by saying the EU would not water down its proposals.

"We can't question our (climate) goals, they have to stand, and the timetable has to stand. We have to find a position before January," Sarkozy, who currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, said late Wednesday.

In March 2007, EU leaders pledged to cut the bloc's emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.

But the desirability of such targets have increasingly been questioned as the European economy slides into recession.

On the second day of their meeting in Brussels, leaders were also set to endorse a European Pact on Immigration and Asylum and discuss relations with Russia following the August conflict in Georgia.

On Wednesday, they approved a financial rescue package worth an estimated 2 trillion euros (2.7 trillion dollars) and called for an international summit to change the rules of global capitalism. (dpa)