The enlargement of the European Union was the raison d'etre of the Nice Summit, yet somewhere in the fray between big and small countries, the 13 candidates were all but forgotten.
East Europeans say the French presidency did little to advance their cause. The French Foreign Minister, Mr Hubert Vedrine has even called his German counterpart, Mr Joschka Fischer, a "pied piper" for making baseless promises.
The European Council expressed its hope that some of the mostly east European candidate countries will be able to participate in the next European parliament elections. But at the insistence of President Jacques Chirac, the date of the elections - 2004 - was removed from the text.
"The only date that exists for us is the 1st of January 2003," Mr Chirac told a press conference. "The doors will open to those who fulfill the conditions for entry," he said. "But this is in no way a commitment on the beginning of entry of this or that country. There is no commitment on the date."
Hardly a warm welcome. In the decade since the EU began discussing enlargement, the poorest applicants had already despaired of entering the union.
At the conference of candidate states with EU leaders on Thursday, the outgoing Romanian president, Mr Emil Constantinescu, privately expressed bitterness that the EU did not want Romania. Yet every Romanian government since the 1990 revolution against the Ceaucescu dictatorship has made EU membership a top priority. Because the Romanian language is so close to French, Paris once championed Bucharest's application.
But with 40 per cent inflation, 15 per cent unemployment and rampant corruption, Romania is decades from meeting EU requirements. Worse, the disastrous economy has polarised Romanian politics between the xenophobic, extreme right-wing presidential candidate, Mr Corneliu Vadim Tudor, and his rival, Mr Ion Iliescu, a former communist. The second round of Romania's presidential election took place yesterday and one of the two - hardly an appetising choice for the EU - should be announced as the winner today.
Mr Flamind Dinu, the head of the Romanian service of Radio France Internationale, fears the EU's cool attitude towards the east Europeans may doom Romania to falling back under Russian domination.
"Russia remembers that she was the master," he said. "There are those who would like to rebuild the iron curtain. Russia is still the second power in the world. Vladimir Putin came to power on promises of restoring Russia's prestige and power."
Poland is closer to qualifying for EU membership. Yet when on Saturday morning the French presidency initially offered Warsaw only 26 votes in the European Council, the Poles were furious. Spain, with just a million more people, was being offered 28 votes.
"It's a bad sign," the Polish commentator, Mr Ludwik Lewin, said. "We felt we were being relegated to the second league."
France later agreed to give Poland 28 votes, but resentment lingered. Germany is the main advocate of Polish membership, and Paris' first proposal was interpreted as an attempt to stop the two countries being able to vote together as an effective block. Mr Lewin described the French presidency through Polish eyes as "hypocritical, arrogant and preachy".
A Czech source said Prague "is much less hysterical than Poland". There has been no official Czech reaction to the ructions in Nice, although Czechs too are growing impatient. Czechs feel confident they will be among the first admitted to the EU, but the long wait encourages distrust of the "Brussels bureaucrats". European integration has become an issue in Czech politics, with the main right-wing party decidedly eurosceptic.
During the European soccer championship last June, an Italian referee ruled against the Czech Republic on a penalty. Some Czech newspapers said the decision would have been different had they been the Dutch team. The incident proved they would be second class citizens in an enlarged Europe.
East European applicants for EU membership also resent the "best student" status of Hungary, whose prime minister, Mr Viktor Orban, has repeatedly implied that Hungary will qualify first and that it will not wait for the others.