EU Finance Ministers have failed to agree on how monetary policy will be co-ordinated after the introduction of the euro. But the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, was able to emerge from what he confessed was a frustrating meeting yesterday with one clear substantive decision - his own on the motifs on the Irish side of the euro coinage.
Mr McCreevy said that the Irish face of the euro coins would have four elements - a harp, the twelve stars of the EU, "Eire", and the date of issue.
He would not be drawn on the possibility of an Irish candidate for the presidency of the European Central Bank beyond saying that the surprise nomination by the French of Mr Jean-Claude Trichet had reopened what they had thought to be a closed issue. Options were being considered.
Ministers did agree to confirm that the date for the introduction of euro notes and banknotes into circulation would be, as planned, January 1st, 2002; retailers had lobbied to move the date from then, but a majority of member states preferred no change.
But the shape of a new committee of euro participants to co-ordinate monetary policy once the single currency is launched eluded them. There is still some hope that agreement can be reached by the time of the December Luxembourg summit. The main ingredients are there: the committee will have to be informal and not pre-empt decisions of Finance Ministers at Ecofin.
Ireland backed the idea of the committee functioning with all EU members present as equals but acknowledges that a formula allowing some form of reduced access as observers for the "outs" is more realistic.
"Our view," Mr McCreevy said, "is that there must be some account taken of those in the EU but not in the euro zone. But the mechanism to do so is still a problem."
Even the French were accepting that reality. Their Finance Minister, Mr Dominic Straus-Kahn, told journalists that "we must find some way of ensuring they do not feel marginalised". But, backed by the Germans and Austrians, he told fellow ministers that there could be no question of observer status.
The British Chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown, wary of any suggestion London is not at the centre of Europe, said that nothing had been decided which would exclude Britain from decisions. And he reiterated the centrality of Ecofin itself: "It is wrong to imagine any disagreement about the future of Ecofin. We believe that Ecofin is the central decision-making body on economic policy and everyone else agrees."
Following the meeting, Finance Ministers joined their Social Affairs counterparts to finalise preparations for this Friday's jobs summit.
Sources say that compromise proposals from the Luxembourg Presidency, which somewhat dilute the Commission's proposed labour market reform guidelines, appear broadly acceptable. There were signs that further dilution would be resisted by the British, Danes and French, but that the Germans and Spanish might now find the text acceptable.
On his way into the meeting, however, the German Finance Minister, Mr Theo Waigel, reiterated their view that "jobs policy is a national policy".
The challenge, one diplomat put it cynically, is to have as tough guidelines in the final document as possible without forcing member states to commit themselves to them.
The Minister for State at the Department of Enterprise and Employment, Mr Tom Kitt, said that the new text did not raise false expectations but presented genuine challenges to all of us. It also provides accountability through EU-level monitoring, he said, and that was "no problem". It would help to create a genuine momentum to really tackle issue, he said.
