In the face of widespread confusion about a wide-ranging but inconclusive day of discussion by European Union leaders to seek to overcome both general malaise and specific crises, many reports sought to categorise the EU Summit at Hampton Court October 27 as one to address the challenges represented by globalisation and Asian competition.

The summit and its discussions took place a month after EU summits with both China and India in September led by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in his capacity as the presidency of the EU institutions. It could have indeed represented an occasion to report on the summits in Beijing and New Delhi and discuss the EUs relations with these Asian powers beyond the bilateral summits. But in fact this subject would have been beyond the normal EU Summit agenda which deals largely with internal problems and decisions and one already and specifically dealt with by lower-echelon experts. It surfaced as a Summit agenda point, largely as a convenient smokescreen precisely to distract from the internal EU difficulties.

The subject is also intimately bound with the ongoing discussions and debates about the process of international trade negotiations conducted in the Doha Development Round and the key meeting in December in Hong Kong where the EU has and will continue to encounter criticism. This Hampton Court gathering could have therefore been an occasion to prepare some genuine EU policy or initiative for this process that would have been more convincing to its international partners than agriculture and other offers. But in this respect, the gathering was also an occasion wasted.

By this manoeuvre and the failure to conscientiously discuss the globalisation phenomenon, to the extent that it noticed by outsiders, might be perceived as a blow to the EU image and credibility.

The occasion at the historic location was for months originally planned to be a reflection on the various versions of the European social model much under discussion in recent months because of the perception of the external and internal challenges as expressed in the startling rejection of the proposed European Constitution in May in France and the Netherlands.

Instead, in the immediate aftermath the abbreviated conclave was termed an express brainstorming session by Frances Libration, group therapy by its compatriot Le Monde and a summit low on expectationsand results, by Germanys Der Spiegel magazine.

Prime Minister Tony Blair shortened the gathering ahead of time in view of the daunting difficulties represented by the whole question of the European model, the ensuing budget wrangle and the whole issue of what to do about the derailed constitution draft. He instead set up a one-day session with each of the 25 participants having just a few minutes to present his priorities as a means of perhaps easing tensions casting a shadow over just about every issue. Major divisions about relations with Turkey, the EU position on the Doha Round of WTO trade negotiations, and the so-called Lisbon Agenda on proposals to make the EU more competitive in the international marketplace had also become significantly divisive in recent months. He probably also estimated that it might be a waste of energy to try to reach agreement on so many topics when at least two or three of the attending EU leaders might be categorised as lame ducks at the end of their terms of office in Germany, Poland and perhaps Italy.

In the few days prior to the meeting itself Blair and UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown floated a number of issues to avert a repetition of the previous EU Summit clashes, including a new concept of an EU financial fund to cushion the consequences of globalisation, such as reduction in employment as multinational firms shift production from the EU to lower cost centres. Another proposal by French President Jacques Chirac to allocate increased spending of 30 billion on research and development to close the research gap with the US and Japan had also been added to the agenda.

Increased attention in the preceding weeks had also focused specifically on the competitive challenge to the EU of emerging economies such as China and India.

Londons Economist magazine on the day of the summit had devoted its cover article to the two emerging Asian giants.

In a parting shot at some of the beliefs held by his host and others in the EU, outgoing German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder displayed the scepticism about globalisation and open markets typical in much of Europe. We are confronted by a fundamental conflict. Should we elevate the market and never-ending liberalisation at the heart of our political action, or do we Europeans stick to our beliefs? Answering his own question, he said that the EU should maintain its strong social welfare orientation and remarked that the public no longer saw the EU as a shield against the ills of globalisation.

His remarks seemed to go in the direction of a European public opinion poll suggesting that 38% of respondents identified globalisation with delocalisation or the transfer of jobs from Europe to emerging production centres and that only 16% regarded the process as an open opportunity for European business.