The pounding rhythms and high kicks of Riverdance marked a rousing official start to federal banking in Europe. The Irish dance troupe entertained assembled European politicians, central bankers and senior members of the continent's financial institutions, who gathered in Frankfurt yesterday to inaugurate the European Central Bank.

Council members from the new central bank which will decide monetary policy for members of the European currency union after the euro is launched at the start of 1999

stood on the balcony of Frankfurt's historic town hall, where they unveiled an EU flag to the bemusement of passers-by in the square below. However there were cheers from a crowd of schoolchildren, who were there to wish the fledging institution well.

The scene then shifted to the Old Opera building, where a bewildering number of black Mercedes and BMWs, as well as the British embassy's Rolls Royce, deposited European finance's finest.

Willem Duisenberg, the gregarious Dutchman who will be the first president of the European central bank, gave the welcoming address. No doubt foreshadowing many speeches to come, he focused on the evils of inflation and the need for the euro-zone members to act to hold it down.

Thoughts of the bitter row over Mr Duisenberg's job were far from the minds of the audience in Frankfurt as the Royal Dutch male-voice choir took the stage. Speeches by Tony Blair (suitably pro-European), Jose Maria Gil-Roberts, the president of the European Parliament, Jacques Santer, the Commission president and Helmut Kohl, the German chancellor, followed. In between, the choir continued to entertain with suitable songs such as Abba's "Money, Money, Money."

Riverdance rounded off the event, before the assembled bankers departed, praising a great day out but with many reserving judgement on how the institution will work until it takes charge next year.