European Union leaders will have to cut short their holidays at the end of this week in order to be in Brussels on Monday to attend an extraordinary European Council meeting convened by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The summit will review the relationship between the EU and Moscow after the crisis in Georgia revived East-West tensions reminiscent of the Cold War era. France currently holds the EU's rotating presidency.
In a statement issued yesterday, President Sarkozy said that the meeting would be devoted to "the course of action that the European Union intends to take in terms of aid to Georgia and its future relations with Russia".
The meeting was convened "at the request of several EU member states", the statement added.
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi is expected to travel to Brussels on Sunday night shortly after returning from his family vacation in northern France, according to government sources.
The sources said that the government has always maintained that "the sovereignty of states should be fully respected and this also applies to the recent conflict in Georgia".
Many EU member states were highly critical of Moscow's actions earlier this month. Poland and the Baltic states took particular exception to Russia's invasion of Georgia in response to an offensive by the Georgian military in South Ossetia, a separatist province at the Russian border with close ties to Moscow.
The move by the French EU presidency follows a telephone call between President Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday, in which Mr Sarkozy fruitlessly urged Russia to withdraw from the Georgian towns of Poti and Senaki. On Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on national TV that Russia has not yet fulfilled its commitment to the six-point peace plan on withdrawal to pre-conflict positions and stated that "Russia's credibility is at stake".
At the end of last week, the Russian army began to pull back from Georgia, however the process has been described as very slow by the US.
In response to the Russian incursion into Georgia, some EU countries, particularly former communist EU states, backed by the UK and Sweden, suggested freezing the EU-Russia partnership treaty and visa-free travel talks, keeping Russia out of the WTO and boycotting the 2014 winter Olympics in Russia as potential sanctions.
However, Germany, one of Moscow's strongest EU allies, spoke out against suspending the EU-Russia negotiations.
EU sources yesterday told The Times that next week's summit will try to get the 27 EU member states to "speak with one voice over this latest conflict and move on a common strategy".