NO CHILD'S PLAY ON A LONG ROAD.

Children who were born in Turkey as their country applied for EU membership are now parents and grandparents. By the time Turkey joins the EU - as this week's Summit envisages - many children at school today in Turkey will also be parents. It has been a long road so far - and a long road lies ahead.

The substantive issues had already been resolved in the run-up to the Summit, and the arguments came down eventually to questions of national pride - in a stand-off between Turkey and 24 Member States on the one hand, and Cyprus on the other.

The prominence of the Cyprus question suggests what a long-term venture this new enlargement of the EU will prove to be. The longstanding tensions in the divided island have to be overcome. A history of inter-community distrust, military conflict, and continuing military occupation disfigures a country which is an EU Member State - physically, if not yet entirely politically.

And, as if Cyprus were a microcosm of the EU itself, the Summit discussions were also disfigured by fear, mistrust and resentment. The fine-tuning of the eventual agreement on how far Turkey would have to go in recognising Cyprus, and how soon, provoked some strong language, indicative of the sensitivities on...