But Mr Vitorino said: “We are totally sure it is not in breach of the obligations of member states.”But the UNHCR is worried that asylum-seekers could be deported to a third country without any guarantee of having their claim processed there. His German counterpart, Otto Schily, said it was “an important step to avoid asylum shopping”.The new agreement will apply to all 15 EU member states, plus the 10 that join on Saturday. Already, the EU has agreed on rules stating that asylum applications should be processed by the first EU country an asylum-seeker enters, on minimum standards of treating those who apply and on a common definition of a refugee.The European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, Antonio Vitorino, said the safeguards written into the deal meant it would stand up in any court. Germany also had legal problems with the text which were resolved only after hours of negotiation.Michael McDowell, the Justice Minister of Ireland which holds the EU presidency, described the deal as “the missing element in finalising the common EU asylum programme”. London had been worried that the law would prevent it designating parts of countries as safe for all refugees or for specific categories.

There were also technical concerns about the British right of appeal. We would have hoped that the EU would have stuck to the spirit of its earlier work when it agreed to strive for the inclusive application of the Geneva Convention.”Yesterday’s agreement was clinched after the UK won assurances that there would be no conflict with Britain’s asylum and immigration legislation. But refugee groups said the legislation did not provide sufficient safeguards for genuine asylum-seekers.A spokesman for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, said: “There is still a danger that essential safeguards for refugees will not be provided. Europe’s home affairs ministers agreed yesterday to the final element of a much-awaited package of new rules on how to deal with refugees, creating the first pan-European common asylum policy.
The deal, clinched just two days before a deadline set by EU leaders five years ago, is designed to shore up minimum standards of treatment for refugees but also to stop people “asylum shopping” to exploit different legal systems.Yesterday’s agreement will allow the EU nations to streamline asylum procedures and set up common rules on how rejected asylum-seekers can be sent back. “The conservative wing of the American Republican party is interested in the maximum weakening of Russia’s position and maybe even in its fragmentation,” Mr Orlov told the Izvestia newspaper. Russia’s population is not only getting smaller, but it is becoming less and less healthy and less able to serve as an engine of economic recover.”Dmitry Orlov, the director of Russia’s political and economic communications agency, claimed the CIA had an ulterior motive.

It also painted a picture of Russia as a terminally ill patient.”The Soviet economic inheritance will continue to plague Russia,” the report said. “Besides a crumbling physical infrastructure, years of environmental neglect are taking a toll on the population, a toll made worse by such societal costs of transition as alcoholism, cardiac diseases, drugs and a worsening health delivery system. “Either the CIA has super perspicacious analysts who can see what mortal Russians, including politicians and political scientists, cannot, or someone has got it wrong,” it said.Boris Gryzlov, the speaker of the Russian parliament, said: “I completely reject the possibility of Russia breaking up.”Over the past four years, a lot has been done to strengthen vertical power and legislation in the constituent parts of the Russian Federation was brought into line with the constitution a long time ago.”According to the CIA report, a falling birth rate meant that the country’s population was likely to decline to 130 million by 2015 from 146 million today. It showed Siberia broken up into four different countries, with western Russia similarly partitioned.It is not for nothing that president Vladimir Putin’s party is called United Russia. According to the CIA, some of Russia’s eastern regions are so rich in natural resources such as oil and gas that they will opt to break away from Moscow, which they have long accused of poor governance.Komsomolskaya Pravda was dismissive of the report. But many ordinary Russians seem to share the CIA’s pessimism.An opinion poll conducted by radio station Ekho Moskvy earlier this week revealed that 71 per cent of those surveyed (3,380 people) thought that the disintegration of the motherland was a “real threat”.Yesterday’s Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper printed a map for its readers showing how Russia might look by 2015 if the CIA is right.