Brussels  - French President Nicolas Sarkozy wrapped up his six-month stint as European Union chairman Friday with a brilliant diplomatic juggling act at the bloc's end-of-year summit in Brussels.

Mediating through 14 hours of tough negotiations with his 26 EU colleagues, "speedy" Sarkozy succeeded in sealing a landmark deal on climate change, brokered a massive economic recovery plan and ended six months of institutional deadlock by convincing Ireland to hold a fresh referendum on the reforming Lisbon Treaty.

"At the end of the day, it wasn't that hard," an unusually modest Sarkozy said in his final press conference in Brussels.

Having assumed the EU helm on July 1st with a set of highly ambitious objectives, the French president suddenly found himself jumping from crisis to crisis, whizzing across the globe to broker ceasefires in Moscow and financial rescue packages in Washington.

While exhausting colleagues, diplomats and officials with an extraordinary number of extraordinary summits, the French president appeared to relish his role as King of Brussels.

"When I took over the presidency, people said 'six months is not that long'. But look at how much you can get done in six months! And I managed to triple the number of European summits ... which is quite nice," he said.

Sarkozy has certainly not achieved everything he set himself out to achieve. His idea of a Mediterranean Union, for instance, has flopped, while his aim of creating a common European defence policy has made little headway.

But there is little doubt that his presidency will, above all, be remembered for his ability to clinch a deal on rules designed to force the EU to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 20 per cent below their 1990 levels over the next 12 years.

"What is happening here is historic. You will not find another continent in the world that is giving itself such binding targets," Sarkozy said.

In fact, critics say the president has had to grant so many concessions to reluctant member states that the final deal is all but toothless.

"The French were so desperate for a deal that they threw candies at everyone," a diplomat who followed the negotiations told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

And on the bloc's 200-billion-euro (265-billion-dollar) fiscal stimulus package, Sarkozy failed to get the value-added-tax cuts that he had pushed so hard for during the semester.

And yet, fans and critics alike will have little trouble agreeing that he brought a lively and refreshing change to what are all too often dreary press conferences by EU leaders.

Briefing reporters at the end of the summit, Sarkozy complained at one point that one of his most "revolutionary" acts in Brussels had been trying to get an extra chair for his environment minister.

"People could spend hours arguing about the number of chairs that are needed per delegation, which is pointless. We need to inject some life in this, we need flexibility, we need freedom," he said.

Insisting he had "no regrets" about his presidency, Sarkozy then proceeded to urge the EU to be more ambitious. "Will I miss it all? Could be." he said. (dpa)