EU President France will propose next week putting ties with Ukraine on a new footing but faces resistance from states opposed to holding out any new EU membership prospects, officials and diplomats said yesterday.

At a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels next Tuesday, France would suggest that a pact under negotiation on closer ties with Ukraine be called an "Association Agreement", they said.

An Association Agreement is an instrument the EU can use to prepare a country for future membership, although it is also used to describe ties with non-European states - such as Egypt or Israel - with no such prospect.

With EU countries keen not to raise hopes in Kiev too high, any such offer would include an explicit caveat that it does not pre-judge the prospects of the former Soviet state one day joining the bloc, EU officials and diplomats said.

"That will be part of the discussions - what title the new agreement is going to have, and... what is understood by this title," an EU official said.

"Because if you put it under the title of an Association Agreement, you, however, have to include that this does not mean an immediate accession perspective for Ukraine."

"The Ukrainian government is very eager to get a concrete perspective as far as EU membership is concerned and this is something the EU cannot give Ukraine at this point in time."

Speaking to reporters in Madrid, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said that, while this was so, the EU had "never closed doors" to Kiev.

Asked if Ukraine could expect strong support for its EU vision at a summit with the EU on September 9, she said the aim would be to have "an important political message and of course a very far advanced negotiation process".

EU states want to send a positive message to a country which is a key transit route for EU energy supplies and an important player in agriculture.