Tired and grey faces tell the tale of a summit that ended on a note of grim disappointment

THE looks on their faces at 4 a.m. yesterday said it all. Grey with tiredness, grim with disappointment. Mr Klaus Kinkel, the German Foreign Minister, admitted that such was their state of exhaustion that the final discussion on the key treaty innovation, flexibility, was pretty cursory. The Dutch compromise text went through with only a small amendment from Mr Tony Blair.

But the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, like other leaders was putting the best foot forward, stressing the positive, the shift towards the concerns of citizens, jobs, crime, social exclusion, the environment, public health. .. He admitted, however, to his disappointment at the failure to reduce veto voting and his shock at the source of that failure, Germany.

Of all people, for Dr Kohl to have pulled the plug on deeper integration of the EU was the most galling, and old Europe hands were wandering the corridors shaking their heads in disappointment.

But this is not the old Dr Kohl. He is now battered by domestic political pressures. With the Launder breathing down his neck, with an election looming next year, the contrast with newly-mandated, younger, cycling Mr Blair could not have been starker. (The latter's insistence on claiming credit for everything at the summit was irritatingly British.)

The real challenge of the summit was always preparing the EU for enlargement. The measure off its success or failure will be the extent to which the EU's structures can accommodate new and qualitatively different kinds of members.

In one respect Amsterdam has simply postponed facing up to that challenge, most notably in the fudge on the institutions. There will be another day, diplomats tried to say. Enlargement will not really start for at least four years. But will it be any easier then?

In another, the member states - in reality Germany - did actually make a key strategic choice about the way the EU will cope with enlargement, and opted for a decision-making formula which will sadden those who believe in deepening the EU's integration by increasingly sharing sovereignty over matters of common interest.

The choice was between, on the one hand reducing the number of areas where veto voting applied, pooling sovereignty and trusting each other a bit more and, on the other, "flexibility", a formula to allow coalitions of willing states to by-pass one or two reluctant members in creating their own projects; an institutionalised system of opt-outs which preserves and indeed enshrines national vetoes.

The political effect of each is profoundly different. The former requires consensus-building and co-operation, marching in step, while the latter, many fear, will lead to the creation of fast and slow streams, of a vanguard mentality, of leaders and led.

The Germans had claimed that flexibility was intended to complement the extension of majority voting and was to be seen as an exceptional measure. But the availability of flexibility as a option let them off the hook of making the more difficult and courageous choice. Indeed the practice of flexibility may suit them: if there is an advance guard they will be in it.

Small states, particularly those often with reason to opt out of particular projects, may rue this day.

Irish diplomats' expressions of concern about both the politics and practice of flexibility have been proved prescient. Mr Noel Dorr, Ireland's representative on the Inter-Governmental Conference, was not a happy man yesterday morning, though he pleaded the need for time to reflect.

Yet his was nevertheless a notable achievement, most particularly in the clarity which he brought to the Dublin draft treaty - much of which remained intact after Amsterdam - and in one key rearguard action for Ireland.

The fear was that exclusion from the Schengen Treaty because of the free travel area with Britain would leave Ireland outside important co-operation on related matters. Mr Dorr skillfully and successfully made the case for an easy opt-in system.

His sureness of touch was seriously lacking in the Dutch camp, whose ham-fisted proposals for reweighting of votes laid the basis for the institutional fudge.

Ireland's success, almost entirely on Britain's coat tails, in staving off the merger with the WEU and redefining the EU's aspiration to a common defence is remarkable and unique in the summit for having actually reduced a Maastricht commitment. But it may yet prove Pyrrhic. Pressure to review the Irish definition of neutrality is certain to grow.

Austria and Finland appear increasingly likely to join NATO in the medium term and Swedish neutrality is evolving significantly.

A changing security scene in Europe has made many of the old neutrality arguments appear increasingly dated to EU fellow-members. To the question "Where do you stand on collective security?" Dublin has no answer.

What then of the IGC process and the future of treaty reform?

It seems to be harder and harder to get less and less. Not so, said the Taoiseach, rejecting a suggestion that the EU has reached a high-water mark of integration.

His explanation is part politics, a failure of will and the understandable concentration on the main challenge at hand, the introduction of the single currency. A case of not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

The EU was also, he said, engaged in an important refocusing of its priorities on the concerns of its citizens.

But he also has an important critique of the process itself and was scathing about how the Maastricht negotiators had "set up" their successor in Amsterdam with an artificial timetable and an overloaded agenda.

Mr Bruton's appeal for more regular, small-scale IGCs is well worth pursuing. His confidence that "some issues can be resuscitated at a reasonably early stage" may well be over-optimistic and is certainly an admission that Amsterdam did not do the job it was supposed to.