EU leaders and US president George W Bush failed to resolve deep, and increasingly bitter, divisions over climate change and the Kyoto treaty.

Bush's visit to Sweden for his first top level European visit was marred by thousands of protesters and a failure to bridge a division between the EU and America over the Kyoto protocol and the measures necessary to combat climate change.

Unable to find any middle ground on the global warming issue the summit was forced to state: "We have agreed to disagree". And the stalemate was evident at a joint press conference between EU president and Swedish prime minister, Goran Perrson, commission president, Romano Prodi and president Bush.

The EU will now ratify the Kyoto agreement on reducing carbon dioxide emissions and the US "will go on with their own policy".

However, the two sides will continue to talk on the issue, with Bush stressing new "channels of cooperation" and the US's commitment to addressing climate change.

The divisions prompted Tony Blair, who arrived in time for dinner, to make a speech reminding both the EU leaders and US entourage that in spite of the divisions more united the two sides than divided them.