Sky-high fuel and food prices crashed the party when finance ministers flocked to Frankfurt to celebrate the inflation-fighting European Central Bank's 10th birthday today, a milestone in Europe's monetary union.
ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet set the tone by warning on the eve of the meeting that bad management of the oil crisis in the 1970s caused severe damage to the economy and jobs and that the errors of the past must not be repeated.
Despite mounting protests, several ministers acknowledged the pain but said governments could not and should not slash taxes or condone big wage rises to compensate, warning that this could turn a possibly short-term problem into a long-term one.
Ireland's Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan, worried about the potential impact on national pay negotiations in his own country above all, said wage awards should not be indexed to the latest rises on food and fuel costs.
"If we do that it will store up trouble for ourselves in the future," he told reporters as he entered talks with Trichet and ministers from the rest of the 15-nation euro currency group.
The finance ministers were holding talks on the state of the economy in the morning, before ECB birthday party celebrations attended also by central bankers and guests including German leader Angela Merkel.
After a week when fishermen protested and blocked ports in Europe over a fresh spurt in diesel prices, politicians are feeling the heat.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said last week the European Union as a whole should consider capping value-added sales tax on fuel products if prices kept rising.
German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck and Dutch colleague Wouter Bos gave that idea short shrift.
"I think France already has quite a few problems in bringing its budget in order. Cutting taxes will not necessarily make it easier for them," Bos said.
Steinbrueck said Europe should stick to a collective promise made in 2005 in the English city of Manchester -- namely that no EU country should break ranks by making major tax cuts to ease the pain of high fuel costs, partly because they fear it would play into the hands of oil-producing nations.
"We should stick to the Manchester declaration. That means not responding politically and trying to intervene."
Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's prime minister and chairman of meetings of euro zone finance ministers, said much the same of the Sarkozy suggestion, which French economy minister Christine Lagarde was left to explain in Frankfurt.
"I think that this idea goes against the general spirit," he said in an interview on French radio ahead of the meeting.
The trouble is Europe, like the rest of the world, is being hit by soaring prices for food as well, which is an even bigger part of household budgets.
Austrian Finance Minister Wilhelm Molterer said he would ask his fellow ministers to consider a tax to counter speculation in commodities futures markets.
Molterer told today's edition of Austrian daily Kurier that roughly $40 billion had gone into commodities speculation over the past five months.
"This strong speculative element is responsible for part of the rise in prices," he said. "Politicians must act here. I will therefore put forward such a tax to my fellow finance ministers today. We'll see how they respond to it."
The recent price spikes are as much about food as oil, and even more so in poor countries where the soaring cost of food commodities such as wheat, corn and rice has a more direct and immediate impact on millions.
Dozens of leaders are due to meet this week in Rome to discuss the global food crisis to consider emergency humanitarian aid and perhaps longer-term challenges.
The price of many food commodities has doubled in the last two years and are likely to remain high for the next decade even if they retreat from recent records, according to the OECD and the UN Food and Agricultu