Prime Minister Stephen Harper has cancelled plans to meet with European Union leaders later this month in Finland, according to a media report.

Harper told Finnish Prime Minister Maati Vanhanen on Friday by telephone that he would not be able to attend the summit scheduled for Nov. 27, the Globe and Mail reported Saturday.

The Prime Minister's Office is rejecting suggestions that Harper cancelled because EU leaders would have criticized him for abandoning goals of the Kyoto accord.

Harper's office said he simply wants to stay close to the House of Commons, according to the Globe. Still, the prime minister plans to attend an APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation) meeting in Vietnam later this month, as well as a NATO conference in Latvia around the same time.

The EU summit, in Helsinki and Tampere, Finland, is to be held two days before the NATO meetings.

An Agence-France Press report on Saturday quoted a spokesman for the prime minister as saying Canada "had never confirmed its participation" in the EU summit.

The leaders of Britain and Germany said on Friday they would work to put global warming at the top of the international agenda and try to persuade the United States and Canada to become more involved in confronting the problem.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Angela Merkel made the comments during talks about Berlin's 2007 presidencies of the European Union and the Group of Eight industrialized countries.