BUCHAREST, April 3 (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy told a NATO summit on Thursday he expects to decide on a French return to the alliance's military command, which it quit in 1966, by the end of this year.

"At the end of the French presidency (of the European Union) the moment will have come to conclude this process and to take the necessary decisions for France to take its full place in NATO's structures," Sarkozy said, according to the text of a speech circulated by his office.

France holds the EU presidency in the second half of this year. It has said it wants a strengthening of European defence integration as a condition for rejoining the integrated military command from which General Charles de Gaulle withdrew it more than four decades ago. (Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau; Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Timothy Heritage)

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