Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroder adopted his most mischievous grin yesterday as he answered a reporter's question about the EU leaders' discussion of the plummeting value of the euro. Was it true that the leaders had agreed to remain silent in future on the subject of the euro?

"I hope that will be the case. But it hasn't been agreed. There are a lot of people involved and I'm not certain they will all do the right thing," he said.

Mr Schroder should know. Colleagues complain that the Chancellor sometimes seems irredeemably incapable of staying quiet on any subject, once he is in the presence of a journalist.

The German Finance Minister, Mr Hans Eichel, told his fellow finance ministers at the summit that one reason the euro was falling was because so many European politicians insisted on talking about the currency. He urged them to leave all future comments on interest rates and exchange rates to the president of the European Central Bank, Mr Wim Duisenberg.

The EU leaders were expected to include in their concluding statement some expression of confidence in Europe's fledgling currency. In the event, they confined themselves to a single sentence.

"A stable euro will increase Europe's ability to promote growth," the statement said.

An earlier draft of the statement contained three additional sentences:

"The European Council does not see any cause for concern in the present exchange-rate trend of the euro. It considers that the chief reason for the most recent exchange-rate trends in world currencies are the differences in short-term economic trends which will be ironed out in the course of this year and next year. The European Council regards as positive the medium and long-term prospects for the euro exchange rate."

When the heads of government met yesterday morning, Mr Schroder argued successfully that anything they said about the currency would probably do more harm than good on the financial markets. After all, if Europe's leaders were not concerned about the exchange rate, why mention it at all?

Mr Schroder was eager yesterday to stress his commitment to a stable currency, but he insisted that stability must be combined with strong economic growth.

"Without stability, there will be no new jobs. Without growth and employment, you cannot have stability. They are two sides of the same coin," he said.

The German government made much of the Cologne summit's adoption of an employment pact, but the measures agreed are unlikely to have a dramatic effect on Europe's labour market.

France was seeking an elaborate agreement which would introduce Europe-wide pay bargaining and fixed targets for economic growth within the EU. Britain and Spain, on the other hand, wanted as little interference from Brussels as possible and suggested that the key to creating jobs was more flexibility.

In the end, the only novel element the leaders introduced was the introduction of a "macroeconomic dialogue" involving governments, the social partners and the ECB.

An attempt to increase energy taxes throughout Europe was demolished by the Spanish prime minister, Mr Jose Maria Aznar, and the leaders were restrained in their criticism of "harmful tax competition".