Brussels, 25/06/2002 (Agence Europe) - Graham Watson, President of the Liberal Group of the European Parliament (and former Chair of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms), affirmed that, for his group, the "key test" of Seville was the adoption of balanced conclusions on immigration and asylum, "which combined the use of the carrot as well as the stick, with proposals based on the Community method". He therefore welcomes the "success of Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and others in redressing the balance of the European Council's draft conclusions". Mr Watson mainly welcomes the insistence of the conclusions on economic cooperation, development aid, trade and conflict prevention as means to prevent the causes of illegal immigration. Regarding the Council's reform proposals, he is in favour of "rationalisation of the summits to one day and the limitation of participants", but hopes that the practice of summits of leaders of European political parties before the European Councils will continue. Furthermore, Mr Watson fears that the "abolition of the Development Council could be seen as a downgrading of the EU's role in development assistance, which must not be allowed to happen".