It was a summit all about staking a place for Europe as an actor on the world stage. Past summits have seemed liked islands around which the tides of world events flowed freely, unaffected by the deliberations of the EU leaders in conclave.
Or, if they were affected, as at Berlin in the spring, when the order was given to bomb Kosovo, it was by virtue of the fact that the players were also NATO's leading members.
Summits came and went, ordering the Union's internal business, issuing declarations on the great issues of the day and finding the cash to pay for political settlements others would forge.
Helsinki was about changing that reality, shaping a new strategic balance in central Europe in the wake of Kosovo by embracing the new democracies more fully in the fold, a new regional balance in the Balkans through the EU-sponsored and organised Stability Pact process, and a new balance in the eastern Mediterranean by extending the hand of friendship to Turkey.
And, not to put a tooth in it, by creating the sense of the EU as a real power through the creation of a credible independent military capacity, if only for crisis management.
Russia was told in no uncertain terms that it cannot expect its major trading partner to behave as if it is "business as usual" in the face of gross violations of human rights in Chechnya. President Chirac demanded that a declamatory statement be rewritten to give it bite. Russia will pay a price in terms of aid and trading privileges. There is perhaps not a lot the EU can do to curb Moscow's behaviour but what it could do it has done.
The new assertiveness is very much the deliberate product of institutional changes brought about in Amsterdam now kicking in, and of new personalities taking office, Mr Javier Solana, High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy and now head of the WEU, and the Commissioners for Foreign Affairs and Enlargement, Mr Chris Patten and Mr Gunter Verheugen, respectively.
The most dramatic element of the weekend, without doubt, was the Finns' success in sealing an elusive and always precarious rapprochement with and candidate status for Turkey that is remarkable not just in European but global terms.
It prompted the predictable press conference questions about where the limits of Europe are. Are they geographic or cultural? Who next? Perhaps Russia.
The Finnish Prime Minister and President of the European Council, Mr Paavo Lipponen, kicked to touch. "Europe must be a cohesive area," he said, "I don't want to predict what would happen if Russia applied to join."
The Commission President, Mr Romano Prodi, said the "enlargement summit" had "opened a new chapter in European history". In truth both the invitation to the six pre-accession countries to open negotiations on accession, and that to Turkey, do mark a qualitative turning point for the Union, even if the countries can complain with some justice that the summit has fudged the issue of when they can actually join.
The best guess, based on the ratification of treaty changes by the end of 2002 and then ratification of individual accessions over the following 18 months, is the possibility of a couple or three accessions by mid-2004. Mr Patten confessed to journalists that "this Commission would be extremely unhappy if not able to see new candidates become members during our term". That ends in January 2005.
That prospect has focused minds on institutional preparation and hence the need for a rapid Inter-Governmental Conference, to be completed by the Nice summit next December, and even that normally most wary of integrationists, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, admits that the logic of enlargement will eventually mean the need for major changes in the way the EU works.
Mr Ahern was upbeat about the weekend, even enthusiastic about the decision to create a capacity to deploy a force of up to 60,000 troops, insisting that the EU must be able to support collective security based on the UN. And just to make things absolutely clear, the Irish had inserted in the conclusions the words "this . . . does not imply the creation of a European army".
It was also a summit marked by continued determination by Britain, to its credit and despite intense domestic pressure, to play down the bilateral differences it had with others, whether the French over beef or the Germans and others over tax. No handbags were wielded, and indeed Mr Blair did his best at some length, to little avail one suspects, to convince and cajole the British press into adopting a less xenophobic anti-European posture.
The summit marked the end of a Finnish presidency with a tour de force of political management of deeply divisive issues brought successfully to conclusion or carefully patched over, to complement the seamless efficiency of their term, the efficiency of one who is impeccably prepared. They have been planning their presidency since accession in 1995, even posting officials to Dublin in 1996 to watch our own efforts.
Once again a small country nails the lie that the presidency is too large and complex to be entrusted to any but the biggest. The Portuguese, who now take over, have a hard act to follow.
