European Diary: Rhubarb chutney, reindeer and herring were all on the menu in Finland at the weekend for the traditional welcome to the presidency trip for the EU press corps.
Sixty journalists from across Europe were wined, dined and treated to talks on everything from Europe's relations with Russia to tackling oil spills at the event marking the country's takeover from Austria of the EU's rotating six-month presidency.
The superb cuisine, washed down with gooseberry wine, created a stir among the press corps and was an answer to barbed comments about Finnish food from French president Jacques Chirac and former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Chirac labelled it "the worst in Europe" last year in comments published by Libération, while Berlusconi's complaint that he had had "to endure" the Nordic nation's cooking sparked a minor diplomatic row and global headlines.
So, to get their presidency of the EU off to a positive start, Finnish officials drafted in one of their best chefs, Markku Luola, to "cook up" a better impression. Even the Italian and French journalists were complimentary.
The menu of issues set to dominate the Finnish presidency could, however, prove a tougher task.
Turkey's accession talks already look like dominating the agenda, a fact noted by Finnish prime minister Matti Vanhanen, who didn't pull his punches in a press briefing: "Turkey will become a difficult issue . . . Our negotiation rules are such that there is always the possibility to stop the negotiations."
His warning to Turkey follows similar tough rhetoric from enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn, a former assistant to Vanhanen, who has warned of a potential collapse of the negotiations.
Turkey is under huge pressure to comply with the Ankara protocol, which would force it to let Greek Cypriot ships and aircraft use its ports and airports. But it is refusing to back down until an international embargo on Turkish Cyprus is lifted.
The European Commission, which will present a report on the accession talks in the autumn, is also concerned about the slow pace of internal reform in Turkey. Meanwhile, Germany and Austria, which oppose allowing the predominantly Muslim state to join the union, are sure to seize on any evidence of non-compliance by Turkey to raise the political temperature in Brussels over the next six months.
The Turkish question will feed into a wider debate on the merits of enlargement at the December European Council.
States such as France and the Netherlands are likely to push for member states to set a limit to the EU's borders, arguing that "absorption capacity" should become a new criterion for enlargement. Finland, a keen proponent of enlargement, will resist the "naysayers" as much as possible. "Enlargement has been a success story . . . We should not define the borders of Europe exactly," says Vanhanen, who admits that a breakdown in talks on Turkey this year would amount to a "personal failure" for him.
Important decisions on the date for Romania and Bulgaria's accession to the EU will be made in the autumn and important decisions on the future status of Kosovo and other Balkan states' relations with the EU will also move to centre stage.
Another Finn, Marti Ahtissaari, will play a central role in these sensitive negotiations, which threaten to further disappoint Serbia if full independence is offered to Kosovo.
The institutional debate on the EU constitution will be limited during the presidency. There is a widespread acceptance among EU leaders that nothing can be done before the French presidential election in early 2007, but Finland's foreign minister, Erkki Tuomioja, admitted last week that it was an "almost 100 per cent certainty that the constitution in its present form will not be preserved".
Interestingly, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who visited Vanhanen last Friday while in Helsinki to discuss the Finnish presidency, at last seems to have come to a similar conclusion. Asked about the future of the constitutional treaty, which was finalised under the Irish presidency in 2004, Mr Ahern admitted there would "probably be some alteration in some form" to the treaty.
This is the first occasion the Government has admitted that the constitution, which it fought so hard to persuade EU leaders to sign up to, is going nowhere.
Another key issue on the Finnish agenda is the removal of the national veto over justice matters at EU level. The commission was first given a say over justice matters at the Tampere summit in 1999 and the Finnish presidency is planning a Tampere II in the autumn in a bid to persuade doubtful states, such as Ireland and Germany, to give more power to Brussels in this area to help co-ordinate the European fight against terrorism and serious crime.
In Helsinki, Mr Ahern tactfully said he was open to talking about the issue, but with a unanimous vote needed to bring in qualified majority voting, few observers expect an early breakthrough.
In the absence of big institutional decisions, the Finns will concentrate on concrete projects such as promoting R&D, innovation and economic growth. "By delivering concrete results, the union will gain legitimacy," said Mr Vanhanen, who emphasises the need for pragmatism to get Europe moving.