(PARIS) - French Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo on Thursday warned an arduous road lay before the European Union as he kicked off talks on realising the EU's vision of slashing carbon pollution by 2020.

"I find the mood is good, there's no posturing, no-one's playing games, but at the same time we are dealing with a question that's tough, there are very tough things here," Borloo told reporters.

"To put things in perspective, the economies of 27 countries, with a variety of backgrounds in energy and industry, are being asked to make a somewhat radical shift using everyday budgets," he said.

"At the moment, no other region in the world is attempting something on this scale."

The talks, taking place in the Saint-Cloud park on the western rim of Paris, aim at clearing some of the many obstacles besetting the EU's goal of setting the world standard for tackling climate-change emissions.

Last year, the EU set the goal of reducing the 27-nation bloc's greenhouse-gas pollution by 20 percent by 2020 compared with a benchmark year of 1990.

Hoping to spur the United States, Japan and Canada, the EU promised to deepen this to 30 percent if other rich economies followed suit.

It also pledged to boost the share of renewables in the EU energy mix to 20 percent, including a 10-percent share for biofuels.

But agreeing on the details of these broad goals has become a touchy and complex issue in the light of the surge in oil and gas prices, while the role of biofuels has come under attack for its impact on global food prices.

Several eastern EU members dependent on coal, Russian gas and Soviet-era nuclear plants are pleading for get-outs or easier terms, and a source at the European Commission said Baltic nations were taking a hard line on Thursday.

Other thorny areas include the future allocation of emissions quotas for industry in the EU's carbon market and measures to curb pollution by the transport sector.

"We are now getting down to the nitty-gritty. Up until now, we have only had to set goals. Now measures have to be set down," German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said.

He added that the burden-sharing debate within the EU, between poorer eastern and richer western nations, was a microcosm of the global debate between advanced and poorer economies.

By resolving it, the EU will set "a good example for the international climate negotiations," said Gabriel, adding though: "If things don't work out, the whole world will be watching us."

Gabriel set down a marker that his country opposed strategies -- espoused especially by France -- to expand the role of nuclear energy to substitute for fossil fuels.

"Nuclear is a risky energy," he said. "It's as if you got onboard a plane and didn't known where it's going to land."

Borloo, who is chairing the first top-level meeting under France's six-month presidency of the EU, was to ask his counterparts to identify two key areas of national concern to help spur thenegotiation process, diplomats said.

He hopes to wrap up the deal on the climate and energy package by year's end, so that the EU is in a position to wield clout at the UN talks in Poznan, Poland, in December that will shape a worldwide pact on tackling climate change.

The accord will take effect after 2012, when the current provisions of the Kyoto Protocol expire. Agreeing it, though, has to take place at a meeting in Copenhagen at the end of 2009 to give time to countries to ratify it.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, the 15 members of the EU before the 2004 "Big Bang" expansion promised to reduce emissions of six greenhouse gases by eight percent compared to 1990 levels.

The Saint-Cloud meeting finishes Friday. It will be followed by an informal meeting of EU energy ministers on Friday and Saturday.

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