EUROPEAN UNION leaders yesterday put the single currency back on track and gave a new impetus to Europe's fight for jobs.
The EU summit agreed a resolution on employment. This gives enhanced powers to the Union in the employment field, allowing the new French government to lift its reservations on a major package of single currency measures agreed in Dublin last December.
Diplomats expressed confidence last night that agreement is close on the few outstanding disputed issues of treaty reform in the InterGovernmental Conference. Two years of patient negotiations are likely to culminate late tonight in a new European treaty, to take over from the Treaty of Maastricht.
After a heated row on the jobs issue between Bonn and Paris, finance ministers reached a compromise which appeased France but allowed Germany to claim that no new money would have to be spent. The deal was approved later by leaders.
"There are no losers, only winners," the President of the European Commission, Mr Jacques Santer, declared. "We are well on the road to monetary union, that is the message from Amsterdam."
The Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, welcomed the moves to put employment high on the agenda. However, he warned that a jobs summit to be called in the autumn will have to be properly prepared. "Something substantial will have to come out of it," he said.
The agreed package involves tougher monitoring by the EU of national employment strategies, a substantial refocusing of the priorities of the European Investment Bank (EIB), the possible use of resources of the European Coal and Steel Community, and agreement to define the relationship between the European Central Bank and the Council of Finance Ministers.
The latter issue has been seen by the French as crucial to ensuring that the bank's priorities are sensitive to the political need for growth and jobs. Until yesterday, it was almost taboo with the Germans, who saw such suggestions as threatening the independence of the bank.
"Now we have put in the entire operation and function of the currency it is time to complete the monetary aspect," the Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, argued.
Mr Quinn also noted that many of the measures are designed to target structural unemployment. Taxation and social policies are to be made more employment friendly, while the Commission will play a key role, reviewing the progress of memberstates and making recommendations.
The German Minister for Finance, Mr Theo Waigel, declared himself "very satisfied" with the result. The European Council has agreed the Stability Pact with out changes. It is absolutely clear that nothing, but nothing has been altered in the Stability Pact.
But the agreement represents a significant success for France's new Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, the product both of his own electoral success and the new European political balance of forces which has tilted significantly to the left.