BOTH France and Germany can legitimately claim victory for their respective positions on monetary union. The French can claim that the single currency has now a human face with a commitment to helping Europe's unemployed, while the Germans can point to a Stability Pact which haste been left untouched.
The summit has demonstrated the extraordinary political commitment of both France and Germany to monetary union, but it has also made the divisions between the two countries more apparent.
While both countries are clearly in favour of going ahead, there is a wide rift in their attitudes to fiscal discipline. And left-wing victories across Europe over the past few months mean the currency is likely to be different than originally envisaged, with less emphasis on purely monetary goals.
Most officials insist if France and Britain were still being run by conservatives there would not have been a separate resolution on employment and growth attached to the Stability and Growth Pact.
There are also clear indications that the rules for qualifying for the single currency will be interpreted in a loose manner.
Under strict interpretation of the rules countries must have low inflation and interest rates, a budget deficit of three per cent or less and debt ratios falling to 60 per cent.
However, the new French finance minister is now insisting that these figures must be seen as trends rather than targets. "The principle is to come close to three per cent," Mr Strauss-Kahn said. "Countries must come as close as possible to three per cent and must show that they are on a trend towards three per cent even if they have not achieved it."
This poses problems for Germany which has always insisted that the conditions must be strictly interpreted for the euro to work.
However, observers at the summit have noted that the position of the German Finance Minister, Mr Theo Waigel, was greatly weakened. Even last Christmas at the Dublin summit, Mr Waigel and Chancellor Helmut Kohl won most of the arguments and managed to negotiate a strict strait-jacket for countries after they have joined the single currency - the so-called Stability Pact.
However, the Germans' own housekeeping difficulties have been coming more into focus. The ruling coalition has only a 10-seat majority and the junior coalition party, the Free Democrats, insist they will veto any tax increases. It is also very difficult politically to cut spending and implement a second year of austerity programmes, particularly the year before an election.
It was to get out of this bind that - Mr Waigel turned to the idea of revaluing gold reserves. Losing this argument in such a public and humiliating fashion has decreased his currency among his fellow finance ministers.
On balance, this could mean that up to II countries could be in the new euro zone, with the only exceptions being Greece, which cannot conceivably qualify under even the most liberal interpretation of the rules; Britain and Denmark, who have opt-outs; and Sweden which recently announced it will not be going in the first wave.
Received wisdom has it that a liberal interpretation of the rules, combined with a wide range of countries in the currency to start with, will lead to a "softer" or weaker euro.
While this may be the case it is not necessarily bad for the citizens of Europe. The markets and the Bundesbank are believers in hard currencies.
The Bundesbank, in particular, wants the euro to be at least as strong as the deutschmark. While a hard currency often leads to lower interest rates than would otherwise be the case, the French appear to be reluctant to enforce further austerity programmes on the population to achieve it.
This new focus on employment, greater political control and less emphasis on monetary goals can be expected to lead to political fireworks during the months ahead.
French proposals for greater political involvement in the new European Central Bank will also be watched carefully by the Bundesbank.
The Germans are adamant that the ECB must be free to operate without political interference. They fear the French or Italian politicians being in a position to influence the bank.
However, most of the other countries believe that EU finance ministers must have a role to play and that the ECB cannot exist in a democratic vacuum. This is seen as the first move towards creating a political counterweight to the ECB.
German opposition to both these issues, and more particularly Bundesbank opposition, is likely to lead to further crises in the run-up to January 1999.