(TBILISI) - Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze and two other senior ministers are to attend a European Union summit on Monday but President Mikheil Saakashvili will not be present, officials said.

EU leaders are meeting in Brussels for the emergency summit called by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to press demands for more Russian withdrawals from Georgia.

"Georgia expects political and economic aid from the upcoming EU summit," said Reintegration Minister Temur Yakobashvili, who will be attending.

"Political aid means permanent non-recognition of our separatist territories, a rapprochement with the EU, possibly according to the Ukrainian model, and measures that will stop Russia," he said Friday.

"It is of course exclusively up to the EU to decide whether these measures will have a form of any eventual sanctions or other steps," he added.

Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili will also represent Georgia, Yakobashvili told AFP.

Saakashvili will not attend the summit, presidential spokeswoman Nato Partskhaladze said.

Russia sent tanks and troops into Georgian territory in response to a Georgian offensive on August 7 to retake South Ossetia.

Moscow withdrew the bulk of its forces from Georgia under a French-brokered ceasefire agreement, but thousands of Russian troops remain deployed in two rebel regions and in a "buffer zone" around them.

Russia is facing an avalanche of condemnation for its decision this week to recognise South Ossetia and another rebel region, Abkhazia, as independent states.

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