POZNAN, Poland (Reuters) - Poland will insist on a better deal for Eastern Europe under climate and energy plans slated to be agreed upon at a European Union summit next week, Environment Minister Maciej Nowicki told Reuters on Friday.
In particular, Poland wants to give its coal plants more time to prepare for tough climate caps, under the package of measures to slash EU greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 percent by 2020, Nowicki said.
Recent French proposals seen by Reuters suggest allowing East European power generators to operate until 2016 before they had to pay for every ton of carbon emissions, an extra three years compared with their Western counterparts.
"This is one step in the right direction, but not enough, because you see this is only for three years. This is not enough time," he said on the sidelines of two-week, United Nations-led climate talks, which Poland is hosting in the western city of Poznan.
(Reporting by Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle; editing by Karen Foster)
