EU leaders meeting in Stockholm at the weekend made only modest progress on their primary agenda, to reform Europe's economy. But the meeting has enhanced the EU's foreign policy profile and highlighted growing differences between Europe and the US.
The presence of Macedonia's President, Mr Broris Trajkovski, in Stockholm underlined the EU's leading role in attempting to stabilise the Balkans. And the EU's foreign policy supremo, Mr Javier Solana, indicated yesterday that the EU plans to boost its presence in the region.
"We will strengthen our engagement, while the United States will generally reduce its presence in the area. We are not talking about Taiwan or Latin America here," he said.
The EU leaders agreed a twin strategy of supporting the Macedonian government against the Albanian rebels, while encouraging the authorities to address the legitimate grievances of the Albanian minority.
The EU External Relations Commissioner, Mr Chris Patten, warned Albanians in Kosovo that they would receive no more financial support from Brussels if they backed the rebels in Macedonia.
This strategy is in sharp contrast to a suggestion made by President Vladimir Putin of Russia when he visited the summit on Friday.
"If the Albanian terrorists cannot be disarmed, they must be eliminated. We are now experiencing in Macedonia exactly what we experienced in Chechnya," he said.
Sweden's Prime Minister, Mr Goran Persson, who sat next to Mr Putin as he spoke, simply smiled at the comparison and uttered no contradiction. But the Swedish Foreign Minister, Ms Anna Lindh, admitted later that it had been a mistake to allow Mr Putin to speak as he did.
One reason the EU leaders showed such restraint in the face of Mr Putin's comments is that the EU is determined to forge a closer relationship with Russia before new member-states join from central and eastern Europe. This warmth towards Moscow comes as Washington has begun to dust off the rhetoric of the Cold War.
In an unusually direct approach, the EU wrote to President Bush calling on him to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and accept his responsibility for the welfare of the planet.
But the most dramatic evidence of the EU's new foreign policy confidence may be found in the leaders' decision to hold "substantive talks" with the leaders of North Korea. Mr Bush has postponed talks with North Korea over a missile agreement, despite warnings from South Korea that his decision could derail the peace process on the peninsula.
The EU announced at the weekend that it would send mediators to help the process of reconciliation between the two Koreas. Meanwhile, there was evidence of a thaw in relations between the EU's two leading member-states, France and Germany, after months of bickering. An alliance between the two countries effectively blocked plans to force the early liberalisation of energy markets.
PA adds: The refusal by the British to see themselves as Europeans is not exclusive to the older generation, according to a survey published yesterday. Young professionals in the 2135 age group are also out of synch with the rest of the EU, being more cautious than their counterparts about giving up national identity, the survey for Time Magazine found.
While two in five Italians consider themselves to be more European than Italian, the British are uncomfortable with this, with 75 per cent defining themselves as British first.
The survey, conducted by MORI, interviewed 21 to 35year-olds from Britain, France, Germany and Italy.