With the preparatory work for the introduction of euro all but complete, EU finance ministers will this weekend turn their attention to economic life after the birth and the challenges, particularly to the capital markets, of a single market in money.

Meeting in York informally, the ministers will also be able to give a preliminary response to the Commission's proposals on reforming structural and agricultural policies.

The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, who arrived last night direct from Cheltenham, is expected to welcome the broad thrust of the package but warn that Ireland has serious reservations about the CAP reform compensation. Despite the strike by port and ferry workers in Calais over dutyfree, diplomatic sources say that he is unlikely to raise the issue at this meeting, preferring to come back to the issue when armed with the details of the report that he has commissioned.

The Commission was last night still firmly insisting it sees no need for a study of its own. "Unless we are unanimously asked by the member states we will not produce a report," a spokeswoman for the Single Market Commissioner, Mr Mario Monti, said.

But the meeting will see a wideranging discussion on the extent to which the EU needs to harmonise and develop the operations of its capital markets once the single currency is launched.

The Economic Affairs Commissioner, Mr Yves Thibault de Silguy, told journalists here yesterday that he would be bringing forward proposals within weeks on the development of a market for venture capital for the small and medium-sized firms who generate three quarters of new jobs.

One of Europe's critical weaknesses, he said, was the absence of an equivalent to the US Nasdaq market, a deficiency which the single currency would allow them to put right.

Mr de Silguy also said that it would be important to study carefully the needs of increasingly interdependent stock markets. Efficiency demanded that the markets function as one rather that 14 stock exchanges, he said, and that would mean harmonising aspects of their rules such as opening times.

There was a case for standardising supervision systems, improving transparency, and securing equivalent guarantees for investors. Ministers are also expected to discuss both the Presidency of the European Central Bank (ECB) and membership of its board.

Unconfirmed rumours in Brussels last night that the French banker, Mr Philipe Lagayette, had been appointed head of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the EU's lending arm for eastern Europe, fuelled speculation that Dutchman, Mr Wim Duisenberg, now had the ECB job in the bag. But there have already been more than one false dawn on this story . . .