LONDON -- The recent European Union summit at Nice seems to have been bad tempered and acrimonious. Yet it eventually, even if only after days of wrangling, ended in an agreement of sorts and the way is now open to the admission of new members from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, leading in due course, to the creation of a Union of 27 states.

The summit might have ended in failure and enlargement might have been put off sine die. This would have been a setback and the present agreement, even if it leaves many loose ends, is far better than no agreement and should be accepted by both the European Parliament and the European Commission.

Politics is the art of the possible and it was politically impossible for most of the heads of government to make larger concessions than they did on issues that their parliaments and people saw as vital to their national interests. The summit had to deal with many highly contentious issues and compromises had to be made. The fact that no one was happy with the outcome from a national point of view suggests that the outcome was probably as good as could be hoped for in the circumstances.