European Socialists, Greens and trade unionists have claimed an important victory after EU leaders agreed that a controversial plan to liberalise services should be rewritten to protect workers' rights.
An EU summit in Brussels bowed to French pressure to thoroughly revise the services directive, a key element of Charlie McCreevy's portfolio as Internal Market Commissioner but which was not written by him.
At the end of a two-day meeting, the leaders said any deregulation of the market in services must preserve the European social model.
"In the light of this ongoing debate which shows that the directive as it is currently drafted does not fully meet these requirements, the European Council requests all efforts to be undertaken within the legislative process in order to secure a broad consensus that meets all these objectives," they said.
The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, said that it was clear that changes were necessary but he insisted that the services plan had not been withdrawn.
"It was made absolutely clear by the Presidency last night and by the Commission and by everybody else that there is no question of withdrawing it, no question of scrapping it, no question of starting again. It is a question of trying to work to get the necessary compromises based on the most broad input by interested parties to try to get it right," he said.
Mr McCreevy has told MEPs that he is willing to make significant changes to the services plan, which he inherited from his predecessor, Frits Bolkestein. Critics of the services proposal fear it could allow construction firms and other service providers to operate throughout the EU according to the lowest legal labour standards.