Brussels - European Union importers should be forced to make sure that they are not bringing illegally-logged timber into the bloc, the EU's executive said in a law proposed Friday.

"Developed and developing nations must unite to protect the world's remaining forests. We must also send a message to timber suppliers that illegal timber or timber products will not be tolerated on the EU market," EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said.

EU officials say that close on 20 per cent of the timber imported into the EU comes from illegal sources, with a serious impact on world ecosystems and climate.

Brussels - The European Union is to re-introduce import duties for cereals to protect EU farmers from rapidly-falling prices, officials in the EU's executive, the European Union, said Friday.

Over the last year Europe has been hit by record food-price rises, with EU officials pledging on September 17 to boost the bloc's food- aid programme for poor Europeans by some 70 per cent.

But prices for wheat have fallen from around 300 euros (403 dollars) per ton in September 2007 to just 160 euros per ton this October, commission officials said.

That development followed a record harvest of 300 million tons of wheat this year, 20 per cent higher than the 2007 harvest, officials said.

Brussels - European Union leaders on Thursday agreed to reach a final deal on how to fight climate change in December after Polish threats of a veto were won over, officials said.

"The objectives remain unchanged and the calendar remains the same. It is now up to (European Commission) President (Jose Manuel) Barroso and myself to find solutions for those countries that have expressed their worries," French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who chaired the meeting, said.

Brussels  - Russia's withdrawal of its soldiers from parts of Georgia outside the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is a good start, but it is not enough for EU member states to re-open talks on a strategic deal with Russia, EU leaders agreed Thursday.

Brussels - Tiny Malta obtained a symbolic victory Thursday as European Union leaders acknowledged that the burden of asylum- seekers entering the bloc should be shared out among member states.

At a summit in Brussels, EU heads of state and government formally approved a European Pact on Immigration and Asylum.

The pact seeks to improve the management of legal migration into the EU, tighten controls on illegal immigrants and construct a common asylum policy.

Under pressure from Malta, whose geographical location in the southern Mediterranean Sea regularly exposes it to a massive influx of migrants from North Africa, leaders agreed to share out the country's burden, if only in principle.

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.