Blair denies giving EU control of Britain's borders

TONY Blair, the Prime Minister, yesterday insisted that Britain had not given up control of its borders by signing up to a new package of EU rules.

At a summit in Luxembourg, European home affairs ministers finalised agreements made at previous EU summits to take more decisions on asylum and immigration under a "qualified majority vote" (QMV) system, which effectively removes the ability of any one state to veto the plans of others.

Despite that move, there is no prospect of the UK adopting EU-wide home affairs policies against its will, since Britain, like Ireland and Denmark, has an agreed legal opt-out from such issues. That means EU agreements apply to those countries only when their government choose to allow it.

At his monthly press conference in Downing Street yesterday, Mr Blair insisted that the opt-out agreement remained in place regardless of the talks in Luxembourg.

"We will retain the absolute right not to participate," he said.

"The issue for us is very simple. Do we still retain the ability to decide our own border controls, and the ability to decide absolutely, unequivocally, as a sovereign right of this country, whether we take part in measures or not?

"And the answer to that is yes, we retain that absolutely, without any qualification at all."

Mr Blair defended the move towards QMV, which, advocates say, will allow the union to function more efficiently with its new expanded membership of 25.

"Where we have decided to participate, where it is a measure we actually want Europe to do, then we can get it done more easily," he said.

"So this gives us the best of both worlds - we co-operate where we want to, and we don’t where we don’t want to.

"We are not going to participate on anything that takes away our right to decide our own asylum and immigration policies in the way we think is right for this country."

Yesterday’s move in Luxembourg continues a process that began at the 1998 Amsterdam summit and continued in Tampere, Finland, the following year.

But despite Mr Blair’s insistence that the drift of EU policy is in Britain’s favour, there remains a fundamental dispute with France over home affairs policy.

Paris wants to create a single European system for the admission and processing of people seeking political asylum in the EU, which could lead to member states being given a quota of asylum seekers to accept.

"There is a need to move to a common European system of asylum by 2010," Dominique de Villepin, the French interior minister, said in Luxembourg. "That should be time enough to get agreement."

David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, rejected that suggestion, and said he won the support of several other EU nations. "People are very mindful that they don’t want to find themselves signed up to something that would disadvantage them," he said.

Instead of harmonising immigration and asylum systems, Mr Blunkett wants the EU to concentrate on negotiating deals with non-union countries in Africa and elsewhere that would encourage them to stop would-be immigrants ever reaching European territory.

Home Office officials yesterday talked up the achievements the government has made on asylum and immigration through its policy of seeking co-operation within the EU over immigration.

Asylum claims are down more than 50 per cent thanks in part to agreements for British customs officers to screen passengers at French stations and airports, a scheme that will soon extend to Belgium.

"We are not going to throw away those tremendous gains," Mr Blunkett said in a statement last night.

The government’s assurances did not convince Michael Howard, the Conservative leader.

"Tony Blair said today that Britain will keep control over its borders despite all the concessions he and his government have made to the EU," Mr Howard said. "He is all talk."

Ian Davidson, Labour MP for Glasgow Pollok and one of the party’s leading eurosceptics, also attacked the government.

"There has been no debate and no discussion about this policy - a policy which means we could be outvoted by other countries in a contentious area," he said.