Blair concedes EU summit not tough enough on migrants

Tony Blair admitted yesterday that he had wanted the European Union summit in Seville to agree on tougher sanctions against countries which refused to crack down on illegal immigration.

In a Commons statement, the Prime Minister appeared to contradict claims by the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and the Europe minister Peter Hain that Britain had achieved all it wanted at the EU leaders' meeting at the weekend.

Britain and Spain were forced to water down plans linkingaid to non-EU countries to their record on taking back nationals turned down for asylum and cracking down on "people trafficking."

"It is absolutely correct that we would have gone further," Mr Blair told MPs, adding: "You never get all of what you want... If we had not tried to set the agenda, we would have got nowhere on this."

The Prime Minister said: "A majority of states, including Britain, wanted to go further in hardening the language on third country returns. A minority were concerned that this looked as if we were prepared to harm our development objectives. In the end, the compromise was this: in respect of any new [EU] agreement, returns to third countries would be an integral part of the negotiation."

EU nations reserved the right to adopt measures against countries with existing agreements if they did not co-operate on immigration, provided the measures were consistent with EU aid object-ives. Mr Blair said: "It was never the case that we thought it was sensible to penalise poor countries."

Downing Street confirmed that Mr Blair would have liked "more explicit" language in the summit's conclusions. A Foreign Office source insisted: "We got 80 per cent of what we wanted; that is still a successful summit."

There was frustration among ministers that significant moves towards a common EU asylum policy in Seville were overshadowed by the row over aid cuts.

Mr Blair was taunted by the Tories and Liberal Democrats over the attack on his original plan by Clare Short, the International Development Secretary, who described it as "morally repugnant."

Iain Duncan Smith, the Tory leader, said the Seville summit had exposed Mr Blair's claims as "just another piece of shallow spin".

He told Mr Blair: "For all your talk of leading in Europe and winning the argument, you have once again lost the argument and been left behind.

"Not only have you failed to carry the rest of Europe with you. You couldn't even carry your own Cabinet with you."

Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, said his party shared Ms Short's views on the planned aid cuts. Imposing sanctions and punishments on the poorest nations was not a tenable way forward, he said. The Government's "modified language" in the statement agreed at Seville was considerably "more balanced and tolerant" than it had been in the run-up to the summit.

The Prime Minister rejected Tory claims that he had agreed to the setting up of an EU border police. He insisted that the summit had agreed only to continue with a feasibility study into whether such a force might be needed to protect the EU's borders when it expands into eastern Europe.

Mr Blair said Britain had a veto on the issue and dismissed the idea that an EU police force would be on patrol at Dover as "fatuous and wrong." "I have no intention of consenting," he said.

Hitting back at the Tories, Mr Blair said: "People have got to ask themselves: are we in a better position trying to set the agenda as we've done on economic reform, European Council [leaders' summits] reform, and asylum and immigration or in the position of the Conservative Party which is to be next door to the exit sign?"