Five European Union states agreed on Tuesday to share the cost of organising charter flights to send home illegal immigrants as part of efforts to crack down on illicit immigration and people smuggling.
Interior ministers from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, meeting in the French town of Evian, also agreed to create an early warning system to help combat identity theft and the increasing trade in fake passports and identity documents.
French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told a news conference: "Our idea is simple - we think that foreigners with no right or entitlement to be in our countries should not stay. They are in breach of our laws.
"The solution is to send them home. So we have decided to combine our political and financial efforts and organise return flights for those foreigners whose residence papers are not in order."
Sarkozy said the five states should in the future agree common goals on controlled immigration, saying such a move could help restore voters' faith in the European Union.
Fears over immigration were an important factor in Dutch voters' rejection of the EU constitution in a referendum last month, and Sarkoy has made it a key issue since returning to the government after French voters also rejected the EU charter.
"I really believe deeply that in the current crisis in Europe ... we need concrete projects. Setting up a common policy on immigration among the five is a concrete project," said Sarkozy, the French right's leading contender for a 2007 presidential election.
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