LEADERS of the three Nordic EU member-states, Finland, Sweden and Denmark, were generally satisfied with the outcome of the Council.
The Swedish prime minister, commenting on the Irish handling of the presidency, said he would award it "five wasps". This is a popular commendation in Sweden, after a newspaper campaign which ranked public facilities on a scale of one to five.
Swedish officials said they "could live" with the decisions on the Stability and Growth Pact.
There is substantial support for `joining EMU among the business and political elite there, but this is not shared in the population as a whole, nor among important sections of the ruling Social Democrat party.
The Swedish prime minister, Mr Gijran Persson, predicted that "we will have a few more crises" before EMU is introduced.
The Finnish Prime Minister, Mr Paavo Lipponen, said the Irish draft treaty for the Inter-Governmental Conference is a "good starting point" for the intensive negotiations over the next six months. He was pleased to note in the Conclusions an expression of "solidarity with the Russian people as they implement their historic choice in favour of democracy, the rule of law and a market economy".
He was also happy to see mention of President Ahtissari's intervention at the dinner on Friday night about the Council of Europe, underlining its "crucial role in upholding human rights standards and supporting pluralist democracy", and the passage dealing with citizens' rights in an information society.
Mr Lipponen was less happy that environmental questions were not addressed in the Conclusions, although he agreed that they were well covered in the Irish draft treaty. But he is not completely satisfied with that text either.
The Finns also praised the Irish presidency; a number of Finnish civil servants have been on secondment here to study it in preparation for their own presidency in 1999.
The Finns said they too could live with the Stability and Growth Pact, and the government is determined to join the EMU, having recently rejoined the exchange rate mechanism.
