Brussels  - The European Union will provide financial assistance to countries in trouble on a case-by-case basis, rather than create a special bailout fund for Central and Eastern Europe, according to draft conclusions to be discussed at Sunday's emergency EU summit.

According to the draft, "macro-financial stability throughout Europe" should be ensured by working out "possible concrete action on a case-by-case basis."

"Eastern Europe is not a special category," said Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who chairs Sunday's meeting as the current EU president.

"I will support an EU approach for support to any country, not especially Eastern European," Topolanek said.

The comment followed a special pre-summit meeting of nine EU countries chaired by Poland, in which Hungary called for the creation of a 190-billion-euro
(240-billion-dollar) fund to keep the crisis- hit countries of Central and Eastern Europe from collapse.

The summit draft does not mention calls for a European-wide rescue package for the automotive industry. It rejects protectionism by insisting that the bloc's single market is "the engine for recovery to support growth and jobs".

With governments having to increase their budget deficits by spending more in order to counter the recession, EU leaders are also set to insist that budgetary sustainability should be a long-term, rather than medium-term objective. dpa