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With the world watching, European Union leaders were under pressure Thursday to seal an ambitious deal slashing greenhouse gas emissions while their economies slide into a slowdown.
An EU deal could galvanize United Nations global climate talks that failed to make progress in Poznan, Poland, this week, just as a new U.S. administration gets ready to tackle global warming.
"I came from Poznan so I know that they are actually sitting and waiting for a European response," said Swedish Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt.
But several poorer eastern European nations were holding out on a detailed plan to meet the EU target led by coal-dependent Poland and cash-strapped Hungary.
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende told reporters that those two nations took a hard line against a plan under which EU governments would share the burden of slashing industrial pollution.
Diplomats are suggesting giving eastern European countries a ...