(WARSAW) - Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Monday ruled out rival conservative President Lech Kaczynski going to an EU summit in Brussels this week, despite the eurosceptic Kaczynski insisting he should represent the country.

"We have informed the president that in line with the constitution and due to the issues the European Council will be dealing with this week, for obvious reasons the delegation will be composed of the foreign minister, the finance minister and the prime minister," Tusk told reporters in Warsaw.

Since last week the president and prime minister have been embroiled in a high-pitched row over who should represent Poland at the EU's October 15-16 summit focused on the 27-member European Union's response to the global financial crisis.

"There will be just one delegation, led by President Kaczynski," Piotr Kownacki, head of the presidential chancellery, said Friday.

Asked what would happen if Kaczynski goes to the Brussels summit, Tusk replied: "I could ask the same question. I can just call on the president not to harm Poland's interests."

"The situation is absurd and I hope that someone in the president's chancellery will finally realise this," Tusk said, adding that he may request Poland's Constitutional Court to define the division of powers between the president and prime minister.

Tusk and Kaczynski were scheduled to hold talks in Warsaw later Monday evening.

"I will try to convince the president not to go to Brussels," Tusk said.

Earlier Monday Tusk's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski begged "on bended knee" for Kaczynski to drop his insistence on attending the summit.

"Mr President, on bended knee I beg you: forget it!" Sikorski said in a radio interview.

"Don't go! Don't weaken our country's negotiating position at this major summit!"

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