LONDON: European Union summits are not penalty shootouts. They rarely produce clearcut results, and this past weekends EU heads of government meeting in Seville proved no exception to that rule. But that consideration has in no way hindered the biannual quest of politicians and media, in Britain and elsewhere, for winners and losers.

Thus in Seville, France’s Jacques Chirac was judged to have scored a victory on immigration, keeping national vetoes, while Tony Blair was supposedly left grasping, Seaman-like, at the thin air of what might have been.

Blair’s ally and host, Jose Maria Aznar of Spain, was abandoned to contemplate an asylum policy less robust than he wished, a resumed ETA bombing campaign and South Korea’s grand larceny in the World Cup finals.

Political one-upmanship aside, all the leaders agreed that the EU is entering a critical period. Within the next 18 months, watershed decisions on enlargement and defence, Eurozone stability and institutional reform will either be made or put to the test.

Although the Seville summit was not expected to deal with much of this, the next such meeting — in Copenhagen in December at the end of the Danish presidency — is likely to be of crucial importance. In terms of the EU’s ability to rise to this challenge, Seville was far from encouraging.

On immigration and asylum, Blair was not defeated outright, although he plainly obtained less than the government had, at one point, appeared to be seeking.

It is right that non-EU countries, and especially transit countries such as Bosnia and Turkey, should be encouraged, and given incentives to enhance their co-operation in stemming illegal immigration.

It is right, too, that any direct linking of EU humanitarian aid to such cooperation has been dropped in favour of a more focused, collective dialogue. But what matters right now is that all EU members, having finally formed a policy, implement it in a timely, reliable fashion.

The enforcement of a common definition of an asylum seeker, for example, will be a key measure of success. Will all 14 adopt Britain’s arguably more generous idea of what constitutes political persecution? Even if they say they agree, will they really do it?

Such basic questions of trust and competence will define the public’s verdict on how the EU tackles other challenges ahead. The Seville summit stated boldly that enlargement by up to 10 new member countries by 2004 was on track.

But with Germany in the throes of a close, divisive election, with Cyprus as contentious and unresolved as ever, with the common agricultural policy unreformed and with negotiations on direct payments to candidate countries delayed, time is fast running out for the promised accession deal in Copenhagen.

Eastern European applicants say they are relying on the EU to keep its word and its timetable. They know if it does not, the whole scheme may implode.

The EU’s plans to revitalize and democratize its institutions are in the hands of that ancient regime grandee, Valery Giscard d’Estaing.

Its nascent common defence policy will soon be in the hands (for 12 months) of a Greece whose paranoia over Turkey is that policy’s biggest single problem.

Chirac’s France is meanwhile set to bust Eurozone budget discipline wide open, with all the negative implications that will have for Britain’s Euro debate.

The challenges facing the EU have never been greater, nor has belief in its ability to deliver ever been more stretched. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service.