(WARSAW) - Among Georgia's staunchest and long-standing allies within the European Union, Poland's president and prime minister will both attend an emergency EU summit Monday focussed on the Georgia crisis, officials said Wednesday.

Often at odds over domestic matters, liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk and conservative President Lech Kaczynski both strongly advocate Georgia's drive to join the European Union and NATO, matters vehmently opposed by the country's Soviet-era master Russia.

"The president's absence would be completely incomprehensible for our EU partners," presidential aide Piotr Kownacki told AFP, at once confirming Kaczynski was planning to take part.

Tusk "intends to go to Brussels", a government spokesman also told AFP.

Such EU summits are usually attended by just one senior leader, traditionally the prime minister but President Kaczynski's camp insists the constitution vests his office with a key foreign policy role.

In the wake of the eruption of the crisis in Georgia, Poland lobbied current EU president France to convene the emergency summit to hammer-out a uniform EU response to Russia's military action in the ex-Soviet republic.

In response to Russia's Tuesday recognition of the independence of breakaway Georgian territories South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Poland's foreign ministry urged EU leaders to "unequivocally support the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia."

Kaczynski also tersely condemned the Russian move. Earlier he criticised a six-point agreement brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy for the withdrawal of Russian forced from Georgia for failing to underscore the necessity of respecting Georgia's territorial integrity.

Tusk's liberal government did not echo Kaczynski's criticism of the Sarkozy plan, but the prime minister said he hoped to convince EU leaders to take a hard line on Russia at Monday's summit.

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