The French were, it appeared, the only ones out of step. Their Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, insisted that he could not subscribe to target dates for the liberalisation of EU energy and transport markets and that he would balance the market preoccupations of the Lisbon summit with a social emphasis in France's presidency beginning in June.
But such disagreements at the margins, reflecting ideological discomfort with the reforming zeal of leaders such as the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, as much as specific national interests, were only ripples on a sea of consensus.
EU leaders at their innovation and employment summit here are set to agree today a huge range of detailed targets for a decade of economic reform which they insist will set the Union on course to rival the US as a knowledge-based, competitive economy, but with a social conscience.
Full employment is to be a key objective alongside pledges dramatically to expand access to the Internet, lifelong training, remove the barriers to e-commerce, and institute deadlines for full liberalisation of markets. "The conclusions are the most concrete I have seen out of any summit," Mr David O'Sullivan, the chef de cabinet to the Commission President, insisted, predicting that the full Commission/Portuguese Presidency wish-list of targets (see list of objectives) would be approved today virtually intact.
And leaders agreed yesterday that they would in future dedicate their annual spring summit to the process of monitoring performance, peer review, and the setting of new targets or agreeing on benchmarks.
That will mean drawing together and simplifying in one process the now growing number of separate strands of macroeconomic and policy monitoring the Union is engaged in.
Speaking to leaders, the Commission President, Mr Romano Prodi, insisted that "we must deliver our e-Europe vision by a clear date - a date every bit as visible as 1992 (the single market) or the date for the launch of the euro".
The Portuguese Prime Minister, Mr Antonio Guterres, whose personal fingerprints are also all over the final document, said that while the Union remained entirely committed to rigorous macroeconomic discipline, the summit would create synergies that would allow the 15 to move ahead together in the same direction at speeds that suited local circumstances.
The Spanish Prime Minister, Mr Jose Maria Aznar, fresh from a massive political victory, urged his French counterpart not to be deflected from the path of reform, however difficult.
And he opposed the French attempt to set 3 per cent annual growth as a specific target, arguing that it should be seen instead as a desirable outcome of sound macroeconomic policies.
Concerns were expressed by the Swedish Prime Minister, Mr Goran Persson, at the effect on small countries of megatakeovers.
And the Dutch Prime Minister, Mr Wim Kok, reminded colleagues that although there was much talk of the US lead in competitiveness, the EU was ahead in areas like education and infrastructure.
It was necessary to concentrate on specific weaknesses, he said, citing in particular the need to develop a culture of entrepreneurship and to accelerate private investment in research.
The Commission's target to halve poverty rates over ten years was a casualty of the discussions before they even began. Some conservative member-states are understood to have objected to the use of relative measures of poverty, arguing that such an approach was less about dealing with poverty and more about attacking the less worrying issue of social inequality.
