Blair's limited summit success

Blair can claim some success against illegal immigrants

By Nick Assinder BBC News Online political correspondent

European summits are always messy affairs - and Seville was no exception.

Thanks to some sloppy pre-summit briefing, the idea was allowed to grow that Tony Blair was pushing hard to hit the aid budgets of poorer countries who refused to cooperate with tougher immigration controls.

But that did not happen, leading to the inevitable claims the prime minister had been defeated.

In fact, the prime minister is pretty happy with what emerged at the end of the summit.

Blair wanted tougher sanctions

It was agreed that sanctions will be considered against such backsliding states, with trade and diplomatic measures top of the agenda.

And there were other measures to tackle asylum shopping that may not have been agreed without the prime minister's efforts.

Doing business

But it is also true that Mr Blair would have liked the final agreement to have been tougher on aid.

He will, however, be satisfied that the basic principle of using the stick as well as the carrot was accepted.

Blair was not supported by Chirac

It was opposition from France and Sweden, in particular, that ensured tougher measures were never going to happen - and it is likely Mr Blair knew that from day one.

Despite his friendship with French president Jacques Chirac, the French were apparently opposed to tougher sanctions on the wholly pragmatic grounds that these were countries they needed to do business with.

Sweden, on the other hand, opposed the measure on straightforward humanitarian grounds - that it was simply not right to hit these already struggling countries through their aid budgets.

At the end of the day, as is always the case with the EU, a sort of consensus was cobbled together and, if it sticks, Mr Blair will not be desperately unhappy.

Combating the right

And that, of course, is the rub. Similar ambitions were agreed at the Tampere summit in Finland at the end of 1999 and precious little actually happened.

This time around, however, leaders across the EU have been spooked by the sudden rise of far-right groups such as France's National Front, who have leapt on public fears over asylum and immigration to boost their support.

So this time there is more desire to actually do something to combat that threat.

And the setting of timetables at Seville, if they are stuck to, should lead to definite action.

Meanwhile, Home Secretary David Blunkett is continuing to discuss the problem of the Sangatte asylum centre with his French counterpart after pledges it would be closed down.

All in all, the prime minister will be able to claim some success at the summit.

Unfortunately for him, the fact that he allowed the aid issue to run beforehand means his critics - both on the opposition benches and in sections of the anti-EU media - will be able to claim he was sidelined.