And the auguries are muddled. But no amount of fudging hid the different natures of different countries. Anyone watching the various heads of states and their retinues, effortlessly reflecting what might be called their defining tribal tics, saw that no one was going to mash them up into some sort of Euro-stew. Some have likened the Nice summit to a long, late-night poker game. It isn't really.
Poker is sedentary.
Watching Jospin and Blair and Schroder pulling up to the Acropolis in their home-grown limousines, flying their national flags, followed by their national teams of negotiators, carrying briefcases hewn from the hides of patriotic and, one supposes, entirely sane French, British and German cows, what you really see are teams of athletes fit and smiling, and ready to knock hell out of the opposing teams. Summitry is a bruising contact sport played by consenting adults. It is ice hockey for politicians. Blair looks good on ice, he stays calm at high speeds. Maybe it helps that after years of coming to Europe and complaining, he leads a goverment that wants to amount to something in Europe instead of railing against it.