(BERLIN) - Germany's foreign minister is sceptical about slapping EU sanctions on Russia, as mooted by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, a newspaper report quoted him as saying Friday.

"Someone has to explain to me what a sanction against Russia would consist of," the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung quoted Frank-Walter Steinmeier as saying.

"Even in this serious political situation it remains valid to want to keep hold of some remnant of reason. We are still going to have Russia as a neighbour ... and it is in our own interest to return to a normal relationship," he said.

The daily also cited sources at the German foreign ministry as saying that there was no mention of sanctions in the preparatory documents drawn up for Monday's European Union summit in Brussels.

But a source in the French presidency said the EU will not call for sanctions against Russia when it meets next week.

"We are still in a phase of dialogue with Moscow, not in a phase of sanctions," said the source in Paris, adding that "the time for sanctions has not yet come."

A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel was tight-lipped about what Berlin expected to come out of Monday's summit, saying Friday only that it wanted "a clear political signal of unity of the European Union."

The bloc is in agreement that Georgia's territorial integrity must be respected, that Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is "not acceptable" and that Russia has still not fully complied with the six-point peace plan signed by Moscow and Tbilisi, spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said.

"There are still checkpoints manned by Russian troops in Georgia-proper, there is still a presence in Poti which contravenes point five of the six-point plan," he said.

Kouchner, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said on Thursday that some EU members were considering imposing sanctions on Moscow and that Paris wanted a "strong text" to come out of the summit.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has shrugged off the threat of sanctions, saying it was made "just because they're upset that the 'little pet' of certain Western capitals didn't fulfill their expectations."

The White House said Thursday it was "premature" to say whether it would impose sanctions but that it was "reviewing our relationship with Russia."

The Frankfurter Allgemeine also said that Georgia has asked the EU to classify as occupied territory South Ossetia and Abkhazia and towns in Georgia proper where Russian troops remain.

Fighting between Georgia and Russia erupted August 8 after the Georgian army launched an offensive to bring South Ossetia, which broke away in the early 1990s, back under government control.

Russia has since halted its five-day long offensive into neighbouring Georgia but has failed to withdraw all its troops from Georgian territory. It has also recognised the independence of South Ossetia and fellow rebel region Abkhazia.

Germany's Economy Minister Michael Glos meanwhile was quoted Friday as saying he was mulling the idea of a national natural gas reserve in case the dispute led to an interruption of Russian supplies.

"The Georgian conflict shows that we must not increase our gas dependence," Glos told the Frankfurter Allgemeine.

"We must consider whether we should take similar precautions with gas that we do with oil," for which the country has constituted a strategic reserve, he added.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, gets around 40 percent of its gas from Russia.

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