BRUSSELS: Yesterday, the European Commission failed to agree on contentious plans to draft a European Union list of “safe countries” whose citizens should not need to seek asylum abroad.

EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini said the 24 commissioners, under Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, decided to delay their expected agreement on a draft list, which was to be presented to EU justice and interior ministers next week.

Frattini said, however, that a person applying for asylum from a country on the EU list would not be rejected automatically.

“The inclusion of a country on the list does not mean at all that responsible committees or national judges will not be obliged to carry out a case-by-case individual evaluation,” he said. “In case of family violence or discrimination against homosexuality, it is a sufficient argument to accept an application for refugee even though the people come from a country which is included in the list.”

The bid to draft a list of “safe countries” is part of arduous efforts by EU states to stem the influx of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers. Officials said there is no disagreement within the EU executive on the principle of such a list, only on which nations should be on it and what criteria to use to judge them as safe or unsafe for returning asylum seekers.

Frattini said the criteria deeming countries to be safe was based on “a positive evaluation on the absence of persecution, torture, of inhumane treatment of people.”

He said concerns, including those that some countries on the proposed safe list allow female genital mutilation, were raised by commissioners.

A preliminary draft seen by EU ministers last month listed only eight African nations – Mali, Benin, Mauritius, Tanzania, Ghana, Senegal, Botswana, and Cape Verde – as deemed to offer safe standards of human rights and protection from persecution.

Frattini said Mali would now be dropped from his new draft.

“We will exclude countries where there is a concrete risk of female genital mutilation. Mali will not be on the list because of that,” he said.

EU governments have for years struggled to agree on such a “safe country of origin” list and on criteria on how to assess whether a country is safe enough so that asylum seekers from that country can go home.

The idea would allow EU nations to deny refugee status or asylum to applicants from those countries on the list, which would be regularly reviewed. It is separate from EU rules on safe “third countries” to which asylum seekers can be returned if they passed through them on the way to Europe.

The “safe country” plan is part of efforts to set up a common EU immigration and asylum policy by 2010.

Separately, Frattini announced a plan to set up a e628 million “European Refugee Fund” which would be used to fund joint returns of migrants and pay for joint EU national surveillance patrols to prevent illegal migrants from entering EU countries. Such a fund still needs backing from EU governments.

“As illustrated by recent events, such as in the Canary Islands, the Sicilian island of Lampedusa and Malta, sudden mass arrivals of asylum seekers put a great strain on member states’ reception facilities,” Frattini said.

The announcement comes after Frattini told Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Teresa Fernandez de la Vega on Tuesday that the EU would bolster Spanish efforts to prevent more migrants from reaching Spain’s Canary Islands.

Last week more than 1,500 migrants, including small children – made their way to the Canary Islands, from western Africa, overwhelming Spanish authorities.

Frattini said the Commission and the EU’s external border security agency, Frontex, would help coordinate the deployment of planes, boats and aid teams from EU member states to deal with the recent flood.