The European Union must come up with new tools to advance international climate talks, and must consider introducing a border tax system linked to the carbon dioxide content of products imported into the bloc, according to France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Such a provision "is an essential lever that the EU must be able to use" if it wants to preserve the environmental integrity of its efforts to fight climate change, the two leaders wrote in a joint letter to European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

Some European policymakers, led by Sarkozy, have floated the idea of a tax on imports based on the CO2 emitted in their production to offset the competitiveness loss of European industries, which will be soon subject to tougher CO2 regulation than the rest of the world.

The argument has become stronger after failure of the United Nations-sponsored climate conference in Copenhagen to deliver a significant international agreement.

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