Duty-free lobby vows to continue fight despite Blair move at Brussels summit

Despite reports last night that the German Presidency of the EU is willing to consign the duty-free issue to history, the International Duty-Free Confederation said it is determined to fight on.

Mr Frank O'Connell, chairman of the IFDC, said that "with 140,000 jobs at risk" he could not believe that EU leaders at their June summit, devoted specifically to employment, would not want to raise the issue again.

Sources say the controversial issue was raised informally by the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, at the end of the summit dinner last night. But the German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, previously a supporter of an extension of duty-free, suggested that they should refer the issue back to the "usual diplomatic channels", a polite way of, in effect, consigning it to oblivion.

In the past, ambassadors and Finance Ministers have past repeatedly failed to reverse the decision made in 1991 to abolish intra-EU duty-free sales and had passed it on to heads of government at Berlin where they did not even discuss it.

A unanimous vote is required to reverse the decision and when the issue last came up recently at a meeting of ambassadors some six member states indicated they were not willing to do so.

The Irish Government has been at the forefront of the campaign to save duty-free, at times appearing to be on its own but in recent months garnering powerful support from Britain, Germany, France and Italy, among others. Denmark has been most vigorously opposed, arguing that such sales distort the single market and are an unfair subsidy to particular forms of transport.

Meanwhile, the Taoiseach was urged by the leader of the Labour Party, Mr Ruairi Quinn, to consult the opposition parties about the nomination of Ireland's next commissioner.

The president-designate of the Commission, Mr Romano Prodi, who met EU leaders at last night's special summit in Brussels, again made it clear that he expected the nominees to serve the full 5 1/2 years.

Mr Quinn, who was in Brussels to attend a meeting of Socialist leaders, suggested that such uncertainty warranted consultation with Opposition leaders.