Czech President Vaclav Havel, who spoke at the meeting, urged NATO members not to placate Russia by denying membership to Western-oriented candidate countries.
Analysts alternately urge action and prudence in approaching the expansion process.
Many Western papers also look at the early results of yesterday's elections in Italy, in which conservative media magnate Silvio Berlusconi appears headed for victory. After that, they believe the West European members of NATO will fall into line. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, which joined in 1999, have not done enough to upgrade their armed forces. Francois Loncle, the Socialist president of the French National Assembly's Foreign Affairs Committee, says that Berlusconi and his right-leaning coalition are a menace to Italy as well as to Europe. He insults, he injures, he uses invective.