The French President Jacques Chirac returned to Paris this evening after an EU tour in preparation for next week's European summit in Nice. He said that after meeting the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Hanover they were making progress, but slowly. France currently holds the rotating EU presidency. Sweden will assume the presidency on January the first.
The European summit is set to begin on Thursday in the French Riviera city of Nice. It will seek to lay the foundations for a reformed EU enlarged to 25 or more member states, but there have been persistent rumours of strains between Germany and France, seen as the dominant partners in the 15-nation Union.
