(BRUSSELS) - The European Union will on Wednesday propose closer ties with Ukraine, Georgia and other former Soviet states as part of efforts to counterbalance their strained relations with Moscow.

After the brief Russia-Georgia war in August, which ended with an EU-brokered ceasefire, European leaders accepted the need to push through a Polish and Swedish initiative to make greater overtures beyond its eastern borders.

The EU is set on Tuesday to resume negotiations with Moscow on a new strategic partnership, frozen after Russia's military intervention in Georgia.

It is that conflict in Georgia which prompted the EU to work to beef up its relations with six former Soviet republics on its eastern flank: Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova and Belarus, if it embraces democracy.

Therefore on Wednesday Brussels will propose a new "Eastern Partnership," an enhanced version of the EU's existing "neighbourhood policy" which supports these eastern European nations financially to introduce economic and political reforms.

The initiative would also counterbalance the new Mediterranean union, launched in July by the French EU presidency.

However, the Eastern Partnership will not offer the prospect of eventual EU membership, something which Tbilisi, and particularly Kiev, are hoping for.

As with the question of NATO membership, European nations are divided on the question of offering up a place at the EU table.

Britain, Sweden and eastern European EU members are in favour of expanding the EU eastwards, notably to bring those countries out of Russia's sphere of influence.

Germany leads a group of western European nations opposed to such a move.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, is recommending a measured approach, proposing to negotiate an "association agreement" with each of the six eastern European nations involved beginning with Ukraine, according to a text obtained by AFP.

The draft document, which could be altered before Wednesday's announcement, calls for "a deep and comprehensive free trade area" with each partnership country and "mobility and security pacts" -- agreements to reinforce the fight against illegal migration while offering easier access to EU visas for legitimate travel.

But the talks will not be carried out at the same pace for each country.

"It is a little bit early to speak about that (association agreement) with Georgia," EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said after talks in Brussels Monday with Georgian Prime Minister Grigol Mgaloblishvili.

There is "a lot to be done on the democracy side and the question of good governance," she said, adding that visa facilitation talks with Tbilisi should begin early next month.

Despite the caveats, Brussels is offering the six "a status close to that of Iceland and Norway," in terms of ties, said Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, head of the European parliament's foreign affairs committee.

These countries could then work towards EU membership in "10 or 20 years."

The European Commission will also propose increasing energy ties with the eastern European nations which are key for the transit of oil and gas from Russia or the Caspian Sea.

In financial terms, the commission proposes doubling the funds proffered to the eastern partnership countries up to 2013 and introducing a further 65 percent increase after that.

All the proposals will be discussed at a European summit in Brussels on December 11-12.

If the measures are approved, the "Eastern Partnership" could be launched at a summit of the 27 EU nations and the six partnerships nations -- if authoritarian Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko is invited -- in April in the Czech Republic, which will assume the EU presidency from France in January.

Between now and then Kiev hopes to strengthen the partnership deal further, its ambassador to the EU Andri Veselovsky said.

Ukraine would in particular like to see a permanent body set up, dedicated to the partnership, to make sure that agreed proposals are implemented.

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