BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A European Union summit launched an ambitious project to reshape the bloc for the 21st century on Saturday but ended in acrimony when leaders failed to agree on how to share out a dozen new EU agencies.
Wrapping up a two-day summit, the 15 leaders took the unprecedented step of agreeing on a political Convention to chart the future course of the union, adopting the grand-sounding Laeken Declaration on the Future of Europe.
The Convention, due to start work in March, will draw up proposals for reforms to make the EU operate more smoothly and effectively as it prepares to welcome up to a dozen new members -- mostly former Communist countries of central and eastern Europe -- in the next few years.
As the leaders deliberated in the sumptuous surroundings of Brussels' Laeken palace, anti-capitalist protesters hurled Molotov cocktails at police and vandalized buildings and cars during a march in the city center.
Police said about 70 people were arrested, 10 of them for possessing weapons.
The EU leaders named veteran former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing to chair the Convention which could bring far-reaching changes to the way the EU works, perhaps even setting the bloc on the road toward its own constitution.
But they showed no such grand vision when it came to deciding which EU countries would host a dozen new EU bodies, including a food safety agency and maritime safety agency.