"EIN gutes ergebnis. Ich bin zufrieden." ("A good outcome. I'm satisfied."), said the German Finance Minister, Mr Theo Waigel, to end the day of the long wait.
Yesterday's opening of the European summit was played out against the background of the single currency, with the backdrop of the huge media circus waiting for the triumphant news. Not so much peace in our time, as euro in our time.
Signs of the breakthrough came late in the afternoon, when journalists surrounded a diminutive man from the European Commission as if he were handing out £20 notes In fact he was handing out "Presidency Proposals" re the annual fall of GDP. Until then, for most of the hacks, it had been a day of coffee breaks and playing on the Internet.
The day had begun sonorously enough with the arrival of official delegations sirening their way up Dame Street to Dublin Castle.
"Ah, here's your man now, Jimmy, here's the battleaxe himself," quipped one bystander as the British Prime Minister, John Major, made his arrival.
The ghosts of Dev and Collins must have wrung their hands in despair, watching a British PM returning to the seat of British rule without as much as a Euroboo. Dame Street was cold and deserted yesterday morning, few people, barring watchful gardai, paying any attention to Mr Major's arrival.
Security, of course, was very tight, but at least one garda brought a light touch to his heavy duties. Confronted by a Spanish TV journalist with a long, tube shaped case for a microphone boom, he clapped him cheerfully on the back. "So you brought your rocket launcher," he exclaimed.
Inside the Cattle walls, a combination of the chill December air and the difficulties of explaining the "stability pact/deficit spending" conundrum re the birth of the new single "euro" currency proved a big hindrance to the television brigade out on the "driving range".
Set up in the "Dubh Linn" garden at the back of the castle, the "driving range" was a series of bright blue, two tiered studios cum open air rabbit hutches. From these, European television audiences received up to the minute news on the summit.
Whatever the language, the "stability pact" and/or maybe - the cold were causing problems. The woman from Spanish television got halfway through her spiel delivery and choked on her fiscal deficit percentages, broke into a big laugh and gave her patient cameraman a hug.
The man from Italian state broadcaster, RAI, appeared to be doing a bit better until he, too, choked out, stricken by an attack of fiscal deficit induced coughing that left him appealing for a throat lozenge.
These Mediterranean types, they don't just have what it takes for a Northern European based summit.
Given the frailty of the human hack, the Dutch, who organise the next Euro shindig in Amsterdam in June, have opted to leave nothing to chance. A research team acting on behalf of Amsterdam City Council was busy in the coffee bar area of the castle yesterday grilling the hacks on their views of, expectations about and requirements from Amsterdam next June.
The questionnaire included questions such as "in which European city are people friendliest/most helpful?" Never fear, The Irish Times had the ready answer for that one Dublin, of course.