LUXEMBOURG, June 17: European Union foreign ministers failed to agree on Monday on whether to threaten sanctions against countries that refuse to cooperate with the wealthy bloc’s fight against illegal immigration.

The issue will now go to EU leaders at a summit in Seville on Friday and Saturday, at which cracking down on illegal immigrants and people traffickers will have top billing following big gains for right-wing populists campaigning on the issue.

Diplomats said 12 of the 15 member states backed a proposal by the Spanish EU presidency that non-compliance could entail the suspension of cooperation agreements or a review of aid allocations.

But France, Sweden and Luxembourg objected to any threat of punishing developing countries for failing to crack down on migrant trafficking networks and take back rejected immigrants, arguing it was impractical and self-defeating.

The EU would need unanimous agreement to threaten sanctions. EU interior ministers agreed last week on a package of measures to boost Europe’s border controls, close loopholes and cooperate on repatriating rejected asylum seekers.

“We have to find a balance between the EU’s big humanitarian debate and the fight against illegal immigration,” said German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, regretting the inability to find a consensus.

“For Sweden the main problem is that we want a proper balance between carrot and stick. We think that if you put a lot of emphasis on the stick, it would be counterproductive,” a Swedish diplomat said.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who will chair the Seville summit, has led the charge for sanctions, arguing that only a credible threat will prompt Europe’s neighbours to sign deals agreeing to take back their own citizens and third country nationals who use them as a transit route.

The dissenters want the EU to focus on giving incentives in extra aid and technical support to third world countries that help stem the flow of asylum seekers and economic migrants.

Shocked by a surge in support for anti-immigration populist parties across Western Europe, EU leaders are rushing to find ways to get tough on the influx of an estimated 500,000 illegal migrants a year into the 370-million-strong bloc.

But the man in charge of the EU’s common foreign policy, Javier Solana, is keen to soften the “Fortress Europe” image which the bloc risks sending to its neighbours in the Middle East, North Africa and eastern Europe.

“The European Union is not going to threaten anybody. It is going to try to construct partnerships with countries,” Solana told reporters on arrival in Luxembourg. He declined to say what should happen if partners did not cooperate.

Diplomats say sanctions could actually aggravate migratory flows by hampering economic development. Key migration sources and transit routes include Western allies such as Turkey, Egypt and Morocco which the EU would not want to sanction, they say.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw rejected accusations from Amnesty International and other human rights groups that the EU was pandering to the far right.

“There is a lot of conditionality anyway on aid payments, and quite rightly because they come from British and European taxpayers. It’s entirely reasonable that we should seek to use all appropriate levers to ensure that countries do their bit.

“They may not be able to stop economic emigration, but they can help to ensure that people who are rejected as asylum seekers are taken back and properly accommodated,” he said.

UK STEPS UP WAR: Britain stepped up its war against a wave of illegal immigration on Monday, unveiling machines that can even detect the heartbeat of a person hidden in a car or truck coming into the country.

Apart from the heartbeat sensor, there is also a gamma scanner that can give a clear image of the inside of a lorry to spot hidden people being smuggled into the country.

More than 80,000 people applied for asylum in Britain in 2000, a rise of 13 per cent from the previous year.

The flood of applicants is such that the British government has controversially tightened up its asylum procedures, including special identity cards, and revealed plans to build camps for people awaiting judgement on their applications.

Customs officers at the main southern coast ports regularly find groups of would-be immigrants stuffed into the backs of containers or in hidden compartments. But not all survive the trip across the Channel.

Last year a Dutch lorry driver was jailed for 14 years after being found guilty of the manslaughter of 58 Chinese immigrants who were found suffocated to death in the back of his vehicle when it arrived at Dover in June 2000 from Belgium. Ships are not the only vehicle for illegal immigrants trying to sneak into Britain.—Reuters