By Gareth Jones WARSAW, Dec 8 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel will make her fourth visit to Poland this year on Tuesday, highlighting a big improvement in once strained ties, but diplomats expect no breakthrough on key issues of contention. Topping her agenda in talks with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk will be the European Union's plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. French President Nicolas Sarkozy failed to win Tusk's backing for compromise proposals at a weekend meeting in Poland, and diplomats say they do not expect progress on this crucial issue until an EU summit in Brussels later this week. "Poland and Germany both have reservations about the European Commission's climate and energy package... but they have different interests, they are not in the same camp," said Pawel Swieboda, head of the pro-EU DemosEuropa think-tank. Poland, which relies on high-polluting coal for more than 90 percent of its electricity, is concerned that tough caps on carbon emissions will harm its economy at a time of global financial crisis. Other ex-communist states share its worries. By contrast Germany, the EU's biggest economy and industrial powerhouse, backs the plans to force power stations to pay from 2013 for permits to pollute, but wants to blunt the cost of carbon emission allowances for its car industry. "Both countries will see value in keeping the talks going until the (Dec. 10-11) EU summit, trying to get better terms," said Swieboda. Sarkozy is determined to clinch an accord on the climate package before France's six-month EU presidency ends on Dec. 31. EASTERN NEIGHBOURS Merkel and Tusk are also set to discuss a Polish-sponsored initiative to bolster EU ties with ex-Soviet republics such as Ukraine, though Berlin does not share Warsaw's keenness to extend full membership of the bloc to these countries. Germany and Poland also differ over a planned pipeline under the Baltic Sea which would carry Russian natural gas to western European markets. Poland and the Baltic states fear the pipeline could be used to cut them off from Russian supplies. "But both countries see the need for a strong dialogue with Russia," said one EU diplomat, noting that the Tusk government has backed the resumption of talks with Moscow on a new partnership despite Polish President Lech Kaczynski's criticism. The talks were suspended after Russia fought a brief war with Georgia in August. Kaczynski, who has some say in Polish foreign policy, has been a vocal critic of Russia. Relations between Berlin and Warsaw suffered badly when Kaczynski's twin brother was Polish prime minister. Critics accused the Kaczynski brothers of fomenting anti-German sentiment linked to Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939. "We have a much more businesslike relationship now, very constructive, but we are not talking strategic relationship here," said Swieboda. "History is still enormously important for Poland... German-Polish reconciliation is still very much on the agenda, it has not really been solved yet." Officials from up to 10 German ministries will accompany Merkel for talks with their Polish counterparts. They include the environment minister who will then attend a U.N.-backed climate conference in Poznan, western Poland.
A destroyed bulldozer is seen at a burned area in the forest at the coastal town of Laguna Verde, some 115 km (71 miles) northwest of Santiago, in this March 6, ...
