EU:Tensions threaten to overshadow next week's summit, writes Jamie Smyth in Brussels.
The EU has said that there is little chance of ending a 17-month long trade dispute between Russia and Poland before a crucial EU-Russia summit next week.
Diplomats also warned yesterdaythat diplomatic "irritants" between the blocs could overshadow the summit, where it had been hoped talks on a partnership agreement covering energy, human rights and trade might start.
Tensions between Estonia and Russia are running high following Tallinn's relocation of a memorial erected during Soviet times for Red Army soldiers who died in the second World War.
Lithuania is also pressing the EU to raise the issue of Russia's decision to cut off oil supplies to one of its refineries at the summit in Samara, Russia on May 18th.
But the Russian ban on Polish meat imports is still the critical issue that is holding up talks on a new EU-Russia partnership and co-operation agreement.
Moscow banned meat imports from Poland 17 months ago, alleging fraud. But Warsaw says the ban is politically motivated and is vetoing the start of new partnership talks until it is lifted.
"I am quite pessimistic," said a senior EU official yesterday, when asked about the chances of talks on the partnership agreement beginning at the EU-Russia summit.
The European Commission also downplayed hopes of a breakthrough after receiving a letter from the Russian minister for agriculture, Alexei Gordeyev, late on Thursday.
"The letter restates the Russian position as expressed at the meeting in Cyprus," a commission spokesman said of a meeting last month between EU health commissioner Markos Kyprianou and Mr Gordeyev that failed to find a solution.
The stand-off over the ban is a disappointment for Germany, the holder of the six-month rotating EU presidency. It had targeted a new partnership deal as a way to press Moscow to sign up to commitments to liberalise its oil and gas pipeline infrastructure and to agree to more foreign investment in its energy sector.
Berlin has worked behind the scenes for months to broker a deal on the meat ban, and is trying to reduce tensions between Russia and the EU.
But EU diplomats believe Russia has lost interest in agreeing a partnership deal amid more serious disputes over the future status of Kosovo and a proposed US missile shield in Europe.
Meanwhile, the presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine attended a summit in Krakow yesterday aimed at reducing their states' dependence on Russian energy.
The EU relies on Russia for more than one-quarter of its energy supplies, a situation that is causing alarm, given the current difficult EU-Russia relations.