EU and Arab Leaders Agree Anti-terror Compromise

European Union and Mediterranean leaders today agreed on an anti-terrorism code of conduct, but were unable to settle on a definition of what constitutes terrorism at a difficult summit in Barcelona.

After all-night talks on Sunday, foreign ministers from 35 countries, including Israel, finally agreed on the code, which denounces terrorism "in all its forms and manifestations" and outlines plans to coordinate anti-terror operations.

However, the code's failure to define terrorism meant the two-day EuroMed conference disbanded in disarray.

Ewen MacAskill, the Guardian's diplomatic editor, told Guardian Unlimited: "The summit ended up in a shambles today. Attempts to get a strong statement on terrorism just fell apart.

"They ended up with a messy and bland document that condemned terrorism but did not go much further than that."

Serious differences between the EU and Arab nations led to the compromise agreement. The EU was forced to drop its insistence that the right to self-determination did not justify terrorism, while Arab countries dropped their demands for recognition of a right to resist foreign occupation - a clear reference to the Palestinian situation.

Further disagreements on how to define the Israeli-Palestinian conflict forced the EU to abandon a vision statement linking aid from the EU more directly to democratic, economic and political reforms in the Middle East.

But Tony Blair remained optimistic that agreement on the code of conduct was a significant step forward.

The prime minister said: "I think this is very important, both for the European countries, but also for our other colleagues around the table. It's as strong a statement as you can possibly have on the unified determination to fight terrorism in all its forms."

The Euro-Mediterranean Code of Conduct on Countering Terrorists states: "We reiterate our total condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and our determination to eradicate it."

It contains a promise to "continue to prevent terrorists accessing money and weapons, to disrupt their plans and disrupt their networks and to bring them to justice by strengthening international cooperation".

Specific plans include implementing all UN security council resolutions on terrorism and exchanging information about terrorists and their support networks on a voluntary basis.

The summit suffered from a low turnout among the Arab leaders. Only two of the 10 Mediterranean partners - Turkey and the Palestinians - sent their top officials.

The Algerian president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, was in hospital for urgent medical tests, while the King of Jordan pulled out because of a government reshuffle. The presidents of Syria and Lebanon did not attend because they are in diplomatic quarantine because of the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik al-Hariri.

The summit was the first time that leaders of the EuroMed countries - a grouping launched in Barcelona 10 years ago, including the EU countries and 10 other countries bordering the Mediterranean - had been invited to gather. Previous meetings involved foreign ministers only. The EU justice commissioner, Franco Frattini, said the new code of conduct could bring UN efforts to agree on a definition of terrorism a step closer.

"It will not automatically be translated into the UN convention, but I am convinced it will pave the way," he said at a security conference in Berlin.