BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Thirteen countries are knocking on the European Union's door, pushing to get into the club they associate with Western-style prosperity. But failure at this week's EU summit won't cause crisis among the applicants: After years of being told to wait, most are braced for further delay.

The summit, which begins Thursday at the French Riviera resort of Nice, is loaded with potential conflict.

Leaders seek a radical overhaul of the EU's decision-making machinery in preparation for expansion into eastern Europe. All 15 EU nations agree their institutions must be streamlined so they don't get clogged when EU membership is swelled by up to a dozen new members.

But every member is battling to ensure its influence is not eroded by the revised balance of power. Particularly volatile are proposals to redistribute the number of votes each member has in EU decisions.

"I will tell my colleagues in Nice: Let's be brave," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Wednesday. "We should carry out our historic duty, the idea of constructing one Europe."

The applicants — a line of nations stretching from Mediterranean Cyprus through Eastern Europe to the Baltic republics — have been keeping their public comments positive despite the infighting that could derail the summit. In Ljubljana, Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel said he was "nearly certain" that the summit would be successful.

But such comments are primarily tailored to both summit participants and domestic consumption. Actually, East Europe's leaders have turned somewhat "Euroskeptic."

Two years after the start of accession talks, they complain that despite major reforms on their part, the EU remains unappreciative of their efforts and has refused to even discuss a possible firm date of entry.

"There is life outside the EU," Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban snapped earlier this year, a comment reflecting irritation at lack of response to his feelers on Hungarian membership by 2002.

Ahead of the summit, France, which currently holds the six-month rotating EU presidency, sought to ease concerns over possible failure.

"It looks very difficult, but we will reach an agreement, because every country wants to get that agreement," Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine told reporters.

Such comments seem primarily directed at those countries that have been seeking EU entry longest — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Estonia and Cyprus, which started formal talks on joining in 1998.

Slovakia, which started early this year, has accelerated reforms and hopes to catch up with the six front-runners.

Many EU members think that more than a decade after the end of communist rule, Czechs, Hungarians, Poles, Slovenes and Slovaks in particular want nothing more than membership in the EU club. Polls in those countries continue to show a solid majority of citizens in favor of European Union membership.

But pro-EU passions have cooled. East Europeans and their leaders now are looking more realistically at their own problems.

Citizens recognize that economic and social backwardness still keeps them from reaching EU standards. And governments realize that far from being utopia, the European Union is a fractious organization with its own difficulties to work out before it can open its ranks.

EU membership remains a top foreign policy goal nonetheless, and public expectations were high in East European capitals Tuesday, two days ahead of the Nice summit.

"If Poland wants to become a member on Jan. 1, 2003, then the Nice summit must be successful," Polish Premier Jerzy Buzek said in Warsaw.

Warsaw has bristled at suggestions from some EU officials that Poland might not be ready by its self-imposed 2003 deadline. Polish leaders point out that it may well be the 15 EU member states that won't be prepared in time.

Earlier this year, Buzek accused decision-makers within the EU of lack of appreciation for his country's progress, considering "how inefficient the former communist system was."

Reacting to an EU progress report last month that listed remaining obstacles to Czech membership, opposition leader and former Premier Vaclav Klaus accused the EU of "playing chess" with prospective new members instead of seriously pursuing expansion, because of its own structural problems.

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But non-politicians, who can perhaps speak more bluntly, recognize that the slow going in joining the EU is partially due to problems at home.

"The way things are going, I do not see Hungary becoming a member before 2005," said Judit Kozma, a smartly dressed Budapest passer-by in her mid-40s. "There are conditions to be met if you want to join the club."

In Warsaw, Katarzyna Pohl, a product manager at a telecom company, also said her country wasn't ready for quick membership.

"We are simply not prepared," said Pohl, 29. "Our laws and our economy are too far behind the EU."

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