Surrender to Brussels may be Blair's final EU legacy

London: Tony Blair intends to use his remaining weeks in office to surrender British powers to Brussels as part of his drive for a European "legacy", senior Whitehall officials claim.

Leading civil servants fear the Prime Minister will effectively bind the hands of Gordon Brown by signing Britain up to a rewritten version of the European Union constitution days before he finally resigns at the end of June.

Blair's plan to forge closer links with France and Germany - something he has wanted to do since coming to power in 1997 - are causing consternation in Whitehall and the Chancellor's camp.

The move puts at risk Labour's hopes of a "stable and orderly transition" of power, a process which will begin this week when Blair spells out his departure plans.

If Brown wanted to undo any or all of Blair's moves to sign away powers, he would be locked into a series of bruising and time-consuming negotiations that could dominate his tenure at No 10.

A senior civil servant told The Sunday Telegraph: "The concern is that the outgoing Prime Minister will take constitutional decisions which will bind both his successor and the country for years without obtaining the say-so of his successor, and possibly without even consulting him.

"There is a worry he believes this should be part of his political legacy and that he will be acting as an individual and not the leader of a government."

Blair will announce this week that he will remain as Prime Minister for about seven weeks, allowing Labour time to elect his successor and hold a separate poll for deputy leader.

Brown is a virtual certainty to succeed Blair after John Reid, the Home Secretary, and John Hutton, the Work and Pensions Secretary both formally declared yesterday they will not stand against the Chancellor.