![[ image: width=150]](/olmedia/images/_39224_blair.jpg)
![image: [ The EU has seen Tony Blair's point of view on the Euro-X club ]](/olmedia/images/_39224_lux300b.jpg)
After a day of intense and sometimes angry negotiations, they agreed that all 15 EU members should be able to attend a special committee to oversee the single currency when it discusses what they called areas of common interest.
But they decided that issues relating closely to the new currency, such as exchange-rate policy, would be the sole domain of the eleven countries adopting the Euro at the outset.
The wording is designed to severely restrict the occasions when a new "club", to be known as Euro-X, meets to thrash out the management of the single currency.
The agreement represents a victory of sorts for the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. He had spent all day insisting that the Euro-X grouping should not leave the others, including Britain, out in the cold.
A senior British source described the deal as "very explicit and very coherent" but he admitted that the definition of "common issues" was vague.
The row over plans to set up a so-called Euro-X committee, consisting only of the 11 countries which hope to adopt the Euro as their common currency in 1999, had angered Britain who feared the issue could drive a wedge in the union.
Britain earlier rejected a compromise from Europe that would have allowed those not joining the single currency to attend meetings of the Euro-X committee but not participate in the discussions.
Britain, which says it will not join before 2002, insisted on having a full role on the panel.
"There cannot be small clubs that try and take over the running of European Union economic policy," said Mr Blair.
"What is absolutely essential is the main decision-making body for the European Union remains the club of all 15 and, if there are important economic issues affecting the co-ordinating of economic policy in Europe, we have got to be there."
The agenda at the two-day summit also includes plans to expand the EU to include central and east European nations, with the threat of conflict over Turkey's application to join.
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