Brussels - European Union leaders at a summit in Brussels set 30 October as the deadline to decide how the bloc should share the bill for fighting climate change in poor states, diplomats said.

After a brief discussion, the heads of the EU's 27 governments approved a draft statement that they were "prepared ... to take the appropriate decisions on all aspects of
(climate change) financing at (the EU's) October meeting," diplomatic sources said.

That meeting, to be chaired by Sweden, which takes over the EU's rotating presidency on July 1, is scheduled for October 29-30.

EU experts estimate that developed nations will have to pay some 100 billion euros (139.4 billion dollars) per year to help developing countries fight climate change.

EU leaders at Thursday's summit agreed that developed countries should split that bill "on the basis of a universal, comprehensive and specific contribution key ...
(combining) the ability to pay and the responsibility for emissions."

They also said that major developing economies, such as China and India, should help support the world's poorest countries, which are also the most vulnerable to climate change.

But they put off an internal row on how each member state should contribute to the EU's overall donation, saying that this would be agreed "in good time" for crucial United Nations negotiations on climate change in Copenhagen in December.

Denmark is leading a group of countries which say that the EU should use whatever formula the Copenhagen conference agrees on for the rest of the world.

But Poland says that the EU should use a different formula based more on each country's economic strength. This would greatly reduce the bill for the former-Communist state, which is one of the EU's biggest polluters, but which has a relatively small economy.(dpa)