EU Reaches Accord on Terrorism

European Union leaders closed ranks last night, issuing a pledge to do "everything within their power" to fight terrorism and setting a deadline of June to agree a constitution for Europe.

Tony Blair flew to Brussels straight from his meeting with the Libyan president Colonel Gadafy for the EU's spring summit.

"There will be neither weakness nor compromise of any kind when dealing with terrorists. No country in the world can consider itself immune," the leaders of the 25 current and incoming members said.

The Madrid bombing atrocity ensured at least a superficial unity. "The Iraq war has not helped things," Romano Prodi, the president of the European commission, said. "But we must make a distinction between our determination to curb terrorism and whether the war was right in the first place."

The heads of government appointed a Dutch politician, Gijs de Vries, to serve as the EU's first anti-terrorism coordinator, and ensured he would answer to the council of ministers, not the supranational commission.

They rubber-stamped proposals to establish common standards for retaining mobile phone and email data to aid surveillance and investigation of terrorist networks.

Other decisions include the use of passenger booking data by security agencies and plans to accelerate the introduction of hi-tech "biometric" identity documents.

The London civil liberties group Statewatch said 27 of the 57 anti-terrorism proposals had little or nothing to do with tackling terrorism but dealt with crime in general and surveillance."

But Ireland, current holder of the rotating presidency, dismissed such fears and the British government has said it is happy with the measures and believes some member states need to shift the balance between liberty and security. No new powers of arrest or surveillance are being conferred on EU or national bodies.

The preoccupation with terrorism and the constitution has meant that the leaders will not discuss the formal summit agenda, European economic reform, until today.

Five more suspects for the Madrid train bombings have been arrested, judicial sources said yesterday, taking the total to 18.