Has the EU the political will to turn fine words into action?

‘We are seen by the rest of the world as a big player. But we just have not believed it ourselves up to now’

The European Union looks a lot different today following the three-day summit in Greece, where it made decisions about itself and its role in the world.

The past year has been a difficult one for the Union: the Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou described it as "a battle for the cohesion of the Union that we have won".

The usual portrayal of the EU as shambling, indecisive and ineffective was proved true again and again during the past 12 months when it was faced with tough decisions and the members could not agree among themselves.

But two documents presented to the leaders of the 25 current, and soon to be, members defines the Union in new terms and set out its relationship with itself and with the rest of the world.

The first was the Constitution for Europe that will set out for the first time clearly and simply the shape of the Union, where it has powers and how it will use them in regulating itself and its member states.

The second is the Security document drawn up by the EU's Foreign Affairs chief, Javier Solana, that defines the Union, its role and policy in the world including how it should use its soft and hard power.

Mr Papandreou said his country's six- month Presidency had "been marked by Iraq", but in fact so has the whole of the EU. Traumatised by the need to pick between fellow European states and the US, the Union was in danger of becoming little more than a shadow.

But the Constitution at least lays down guidelines that should prevent some of the major and time wasting battles between countries that have different views on how the Union should develop.

The document of course, like the Union, is a work in progress and while the draft lays out the skeleton, the real decisions have yet to be taken.

The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, said everyone was hugely supportive of it, but ruefully added: "they had just a few little problems".

The governments will now begin negotiating the "few little problems" but more importantly filling in the fine details of how the institutions and its players will work in practice.

How powerful will be the Commission seen by the smaller countries as ensuring fair play for the less powerful what role for the president of the Council the body representing national governments, are just some of the details that will finally decide the future shape of the EU.

There appears to be general agreement among the leaders that they will not unpick the entire document, but there is enough room for them to make a lot of changes.

The Solana document on security is also a hugely important policy departure for the EU. Up to now the Union did not have a foreign policy; it had been discussed, but with every country wanting to look after its own interests on the world stage, there was little chance that it would hand over any of the glory to the EU.

The debacle of Iraq changed that. On the one hand it forced the leaders to realise they had to work together, and on the other it forced them to realise that the E U has a role on the world stage.

This was helped by the daily anxious phone calls from South American and other countries wanting to know what Europe's position was on Iraq so they could sign up to it too.

"We are seen by most of the rest of the world as a big and important player. But we just have not believed it ourselves up to now", said one senior EU diplomat. Just one fact should prove that: the EU accounts for a quarter of the world's total GDP.

The fledgling security policy, according to Foreign Minister Brian Cowan, is very much in keeping with Ireland's position.

It cuts a very fine balance between stick and carrot and over the next few months, while the final document is being prepared, the more hawkish countries will be trying to emphasise more military involvement while the rest will be trying to emphasise building strong relationships with countries.

Minister Cowan, who will become responsible for the finished document when Ireland takes over the Presidency next January, called such agreements "the best conflict prevention measures the world has ever devised".

However, everyone leaving the sunny seaside estate of Porto Carras on Saturday knew that it could all be just fine words, without the political will to turn it into action.