He maintained that Gordon Brown, officially confirmed as the new Labour leader on Sunday (24 June) and set to take over as a new UK prime minister this Wednesday, has "absolutely no democratic mandate to introduce these major changes without letting the British people have the final decision in a referendum."

Although there were reports of allegedly angry telephone conversations between Mr Blair and Mr Brown during the summit over the French president's demand to scrap a clause on competition from the list of the bloc's objectives, Mr Brown praised the deal and rejected the opposition calls.

"Like every other treaty that has been negotiated - Nice, Amsterdam, Maastricht - while many other people will call for a referendum, it seems to me that we have met our negotiating position," he told BBC.

"Thanks to the negotiating skill of Tony the four red lines have been achieved and I think people when they look at the small print will see that we did what we set out to do," Mr Brown added.

Mr Blair is expected to defend the outline of the new treaty before parliament today, highlighting that London secured language that the Charter of Fundamental Rights will have no effect on British law and that the country can opt out of EU police and judicial cooperation.

Last EU summit

Speaking to journalists in the early hours of Saturday morning after his last EU summit as prime minister, Mr Blair also went on to defend his European credentials.

Although he has not managed to introduce the euro in the UK as he promised before becoming prime minister in 1997 and kept Britain's other opt-outs from common EU rules, Mr Blair insisted that his country had moved from the margins to the centre of Europe's policy agenda during the ten-year Labour government.

"We have led the way on economic reform, on defence policy, on enlargement," he said, adding that the deal on the new Reform Treaty would also give the union a chance to "move on" and concentrate on practical projects highlighted by Britain's EU presidency in 2005, such as economy, energy, education and climate change.

While the summit was mainly focused on problematic negotiations on the new treaty and particularly on Poland's threats to veto the emerging deal, several leaders did mention Mr Blair's last appearance in their final press briefings.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy suggested the outgoing British prime minister was "someone who sought consensus in Europe," while Austrian chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer said, "I have always experienced him as maybe the most pro-European politician in the United Kingdom."

A new international role for Blair?

Meanwhile, a new international role for the outgoing British prime minister as a Middle East mediator is expected to be confirmed this week, according to several media reports.

The idea is reportedly strongly backed by US president George W. Bush, with some European leaders as well as the European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso also expressing their support at last week's summit, according to the International Herald Tribune.

The nomination is to be hammered out on Tuesday (26 June) in Jerusalem, at a meeting of diplomats representing the Quartet on Middle East peace process - the US, EU, UN and Russia - the Financial Times reported.