European leaders converged on Stockholm today for a two-day EU summit which was fast being overshadowed by the Macedonia crisis and fresh outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease.
The summit - which gets underway tomorrow - was supposed to focus on the European Union's ambitious goal of beating the United States in the dot.com stakes and become the world's top knowledge-based economy by 2010.
Russian President Mr Vladimir Putin was also to join the prime ministers of all 15 EU member states, plus French and Finnish presidents Mr Jacques Chirac and Mr Tarja Halonen and European Commission President Mr Romano Prodi, for a working lunch tomorrow.
But fears of a new Balkan war loomed large - so large in fact the Swedish EU president has sent a last-minute invitation to Macedonian President Mr Boris Trajkovski to address the summit.
Swedish Prime Minister Mr Goeran Persson said earlier he and his colleagues would "reaffirm the EU's political support for the Macedonian government."
Swedish Foreign Minister Ms Anna Lindh was in Skopje today leading a top-level EU troika mission, as part of an international common front that is aiming to isolate the ethnic Albanian rebels of the National Liberation Army.
With Ms Lindh was EU foreign policy high representative Mr Javier Solana and EU External Affairs Commissioner Mr Chris Patten. All three were to report back to the EU leaders in Stockholm.
The summit also looked set to be distracted by today's announcement that foot-and-mouth disease had reached Ireland, after an outbreak was reported the day before in the Netherlands.
Britain remains hardest hit by the highly contagious, financially ruinous livestock virus.
The disease also cropped up in France despite intense EU efforts to curb its spread which prompted a demonstration in Paris today by almost 300 French farmers. They called for 150 million francs in aid money promised by the French government.
Clearly unwilling to see his carefully prepared summit fall off the rails, Mr Persson has ruled out a debate among the EU leaders on funds for farmers who face ruin by the preventative slaughter of their herds.
AFP