(BRUSSELS) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to present a united Europe at a summit on Georgia next week but risks inflaming differences between members on how to handle Russia, analysts said Monday.

By announcing the EU summit in Brussels next Monday, Sarkozy wants to say clearly to Moscow that the European Union is "a force which has to dealt with," and that agreements made with him by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev must be honoured, a French diplomat said.

The six-point peace plan brokered by Sarkozy, whose country currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, has been criticised in some European quarters as being too vague, too Moscow-friendly and organised with too little consultation.

After Russia failed to completely withdraw its forces from Georgia last week, a key point of the plan, the French president "realized that the Russians were exploiting the ambiguous margins of the text and that there was a risk of a loss of credibility for the EU and the French presidency," said European Policy Centre analyst Antonio Missiroli.

But it won't be easy, at the hastily-arranged summit which Sarkozy announced Sunday, to obtain European consensus on the future of relations with Russia, he added.

"Sarkozy proved that he could act very fast and could also negotiate a deal," between the Russians and the Georgians, said Rik Coolsaet, professor of international relations at Ghent University in Belgium.

So far so good, said Coolsaet, a former senior official in the Belgian foreign ministry, but he stressed that the peace deal now needs the united endorsement of European leaders.

"The criticisms which were heard among the Europeans were that it was too vague and that he (Sarkozy) was being sidelined by the Russians.

"Sarkozy now needs a consensus in order to continue to play his primary role," he added.

The differences among EU nations on how to handle Russia were highlighted earlier this month when the pro-Georgia leaders of former Soviet-bloc nations -- Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia -- travelled to Tbilisi with the message that the French-brokered peace plan did not provide sufficient protection for Georgia.

As former Polish president Lech Walesa put it: "You cannot have the (EU) presidency (France) act in one way and other heads of state go in the opposite direction."

Former communist Poland, which last week signed a missile defence deal with NATO partner the United States, amid veiled Russian threats, has been actively pressing for EU leaders to hold such a summit.

Another key US ally, Britain, has also said that the EU needs to reconsider a planned formal partnership with Russia, covering issues ranging from energy supply to defence cooperation.

In the other corner, France, Germany, Italy and Spain lead the group of EU nations which believe ties with Moscow must not be allowed to deteriorate due to Russia's importance in handling other world problems and its key role in providing oil and gas to Europe.

It was only last month that talks on a new strategic accord between Russia and the EU got properly under way after being long-blocked by Polish and Lithuanian objections. So, the analysts say, there is a lot at stake as far as Europe-Russia relations are concerned.

While seeking to bolster his own and the EU's authority, Sarkozy will be aware that not much can be done by way of concrete action in Georgia, apart from the possibility of sending European observers there.

"I don't see the possibility of introducing sanctions against Russia if the situation remains the way it is today," said Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

At the back of the summiteers' minds will be the issue of Kosovo.

Most EU nations have recognised mainly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia, a move strongly opposed by Moscow and which some Europeans foresaw as opening up a Pandora's box for separatists elsewhere.

On Monday both houses of Russia's parliament voted overwhelmingly to support the claims for independence of the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

"The EU doesn't want to make this link publicly but yes, we are paying the price for our handling of Kosovo," argued one European analyst.

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