The two first days of the Nice Summit, namely Thursday and Friday, the 7 and 8 December, have nearly been entirely dedicated to issues other that EU institutional reform, that is to say to economic and social issues, to issues directly linked to the Europe of citizens, the creation of the area of freedom, security and justice, to common security and defence policy (ESDP), the negotiations with the accession candidate countries and to certain aspects of EU external relations.

These works have logically remained in the shadow of the long and difficult debates on institutional reform; though the results are far from negligible. The progress in the field of ESDP that have been achieved over the previous months, have become final; it is a new common policy, and of great importance, which has been drawn and progressively concretised, with advances that belonged, just a few years ago, to the realm of dreams. The Summit practically limited itself to approving texts set out by the Presidency on behalf of the "General Affairs" Council, some Heads of State and Government would have wanted to add a comment (see bulleting of 9 December, p.4), but this is already very good as it is.

The text on enlargement is relatively short, but it is politically significant and gives satisfaction mainly to the candidate countries; see first comments of Presidency (present and future) and the candidate countries themselves, in our bulletin of 9 December pages 9 and 10.

Among the economic and social issues, the Summit accentuated the progress of "Social Europe" (with subjects such as the modernisation of social security and the involvement of workers) and approved the European Social Agenda, the first of its kind, which in practice engages the EU in a series of actions and results for the next five years.

In the field of "Europe of innovation and knowledge", the emphasis was placed on the mobility of students and teachers (the resolution on this issue is in the Annexes). In the economic field it is obviously the agreement on the "fiscal package" that must be underlined.

The chapter on the Europe of citizens is particularly full, as it includes the completion of the sometimes long and heated works on themes such as the "precautionary principal", the fight against "Mad Cow" disease, maritime safety, general interest services and sport. In some cases, the Summit kept itself to approving the works previously undertaken by the Council, in other cases it approved "conclusions" that had bee reached by the Ministers. EUROPE will return to the especially significant texts in its following bulletins.

In the other fields, the Summit "conclusions" are mainly an incitement for the European institutions to move forward, with a few indications for future works.

In the following pages we will print the "Presidency's conclusions", with the Annexes concerning:

- the declaration on general interest services;

- the resolution on the precautionary principal;

- the declaration relating to the specific nature of sport;

- the resolution covering the action plan for student and teacher mobility.

Annex I, containing the European Social Agenda, will be printed in our EUROPE/Document series.