Last November, EU newcomer Poland vetoed talks on a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) between Moscow and Brussels to replace the current pact, which expires in late 2007, over a Russian ban on meat and other agricultural imports from Poland. Moscow cited health concerns, but Warsaw said the move was political.
"I hope the EU will manage to rectify the situation with the Polish veto on the talks on a new document by the summit," Sergei Ryabkov, director of the ministry's department for European cooperation, told a news conference.
The Russia-EU summit will begin near Samara, in southern Russia, May 18.
An official European Commission spokesman, Johannes Laitenberger, said earlier this week that European authorities had received optimistic signals from Poland that it was ready to give its consent to the start of the talks.
The statement came following recent talks between commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Polish President Lech Kaczynski.
However, Kaczynski said Thursday his country would not back down and that the first step was Moscow's to take.
EU diplomats in Brussels said Poland was pressing for the European Commission to secure Russian guarantees that it would lift its November 2005 ban on Polish meat, which Russia claims to be re-exported from third countries instead of being Polish produce.
Relations between Russia and Poland, a former Communist Bloc country that joined the EU in May 2004, have deteriorated dramatically over the past few years.
A string of recent diplomatic spats has increased mutual distrust between the two neighbors, prompting many politicians in Warsaw to conclude that the Kremlin is using the embargo on Polish imports as a political weapon.
