A European Union summit ended in acrimony tonight after the 15 leaders failed to reach agreement on where to locate a dozen new EU agencies, postponing a decision until next year.
The two-day summit, which had focused on weighty topics such as the future of Europe and Afghanistan, degenerated into unseemly squabbling over what to outsiders might seem a minor issue but which engaged the national vanity of several states.
Italian Prime Minister Mr Silvio Berlusconi lost his temper in an angry finale to the two-day summit, rejecting a package deal offered by the Belgian EU presidency because he insisted Parma in Italy must get the seat of a Food Safety Agency.
"I said a strong No . I even had to raise my voice. I ran into a tough hurdle but I did not give up," he told reporters.
Summit host Belgian Prime Minister Mr Guy Verhofstadt put a brave face on the outcome, saying he had called an early end to the horse-trading to avoid sending a negative image of Europe.
The problem now passes to Spain, which takes over the rotating EU presidency for six months in January.
Meanwhile EU leaders named the 10 candidate countries likely to wrap up EU membership negotiations next year.
The gesture was a potent nod of approval to last month's European Commission report on the state of progress of accession talks.
The countries were Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Mr Verhofstadt said that if the 10 countries did, in fact, finish negotiations in 2002, they could become EU members in time to participate in European Parliament elections in June 2004.
The EU was set to declare its 60,000-troop rapid reaction force operational tonight despite the failure of diplomatic efforts to secure crucial access to NATO planning resources. The Union is henceforth capable of carrying out crisis management operations, the 15-nation bloc planned to say in a final summit declaration to be issued later in the day.