The contrast in styles at Biarritz was quite revealing.
France, an imperial presidency, does not have to establish its credentials as a team player, albeit always an aspirant to captaincy.
So we had President Chirac able to indulge in nothing less than a dressing down of the team on Friday night, berating them about the need for mutual institutional sacrifices. And France's Foreign Minister, Hubert Vedrine, declaring that "I" - not "we" - have sent Javier Solana to the Middle East.
On the other hand, Britain is still determined to prove its first-team standing, with Tony Blair playing a more subtle, conciliatory long-term game.
Mr Blair has already indicated his sympathies for the large-state concerns in the institutional reform debate, but in Biarritz he was acknowledging the fears of the small states over the potential loss of their commissioner and suggesting postponing that decision.
His regular dialogue with Dublin has certainly contributed in part to that sensitivity.
Mr Blair's contribution to the Charter of Fundamental Rights debate at the weekend was also instructive. Despite a public stance opposing incorporation in the treaty, away from the cameras he told fellow leaders he personally did not share the fears of lawyers about the charter's effects or believe that it threatened democratic legitimacy. Just don't make too much of it, he asked them.
In his speech in Poland two weeks ago, a thoughtful and subtle response to Joschka Fischer's appeal for a debate on the long-term future of the EU, Mr Blair was also pressing all the right "communautaire" buttons.
Thus, while arguing that EU leaders should use summits to set out the annual work priorities for the Union, he was also stressing that such a programme would be proposed by the Commission, whose role as guardian of the treaties would not be undermined.
In practice, the proposals would strengthen intergovernmental tendencies in the Union rather than its supranationality and are quite consistent with Britain's historic approach.
But Mr Blair's approach, his body language, is significant. Here is a leader engaging with those who might not share his perspective, one who appears to want to problem-solve rather than resort to the sort of shouting matches that his predecessors thrived on and which play so well in the xenophobic British press.
In the early days he spoke of Britain leading Europe, then of Britain as part of the leadership. In Warsaw he stressed that "to conduct the case for reform in a way that leaves Britain marginalised and isolated [and that, despite the efforts of John Major, was what we inherited three years ago] is just plain foolish."
And in tackling the Union's most critical political problem, the continuing, some say growing, public disenchantment with Brussels, he has not resorted to the traditional knee-jerk demand that Brussels do less. Instead, listening to the debate launched by Mr Fischer, Mr Blair in Poland echoed the growing call for a second chamber to the Parliament made up of national parliamentarians.
Its function would be to police the application of a political declaration, "a charter of competences", "a statement of the principles according to which we should decide what is best done at European level and what should be done at national level."
The second chamber's "most important function would be to review the EU's work in the light of this agreed statement of principles. It would not get involved in the day to day negotiation of legislation . . ."
His proposals show an appreciation of German politicians' obsession with a listing of competences, a reflection of their own federallander division of power and tensions. But Mr Blair puts a distinctively British spin on it by rejecting the idea that the courts should rule on such matters, insisting it is a political matter and certainly confident that national parliamentarians will show less zeal for devolving power to Brussels.
Yet the purpose is clearly to increase, not diminish, the legitimacy of Union actions by rooting them in what he sees as "the primary sources of democratic accountability in Europe". "That is not to say Europe will not in future generations develop its own strong demos or polity, but it hasn't yet," he said in Warsaw - hardly the sentiments of an obsessive "nation-state" man. Mr Blair's intentions in regard to British membership of the euro remain enigmatic. His responses to questions are broadly positive but formulaic. Observers wonder if the tentative recovery of the Tories and the virulence of the press against the whole idea will force him to push a referendum well back long into his second term. Maybe he does not yet know.
But the evidence of a critical, distinctly British, nuanced enthusiasm for the European project as a whole is very definitely there.
PSmyth@Irish-times.ie
