http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/05/news/evian.php

Europeans tackle illegal immigration
By Tom Wright International Herald Tribune
WEDNESDAY, JULY 6, 2005


EVIAN, France Five major European powers agreed Tuesday to measures aimed at curbing illegal immigration, including fingerprinting visa applicants and setting tighter visa quotas.

With illegal immigration a growing problem for France, Britain, Italy, Spain and Germany, their interior ministers and other officials were eager to talk tough after a two-day meeting in the French spa town of Evian.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French interior minister, who has made clamping down on illegal immigration a central plank of his campaign for the French presidency in 2007, said: "We want to send out a very clear signal that only people with the right papers can come to our countries."

The ministers, meeting as the EU's informal G-5 grouping, also agreed to work more closely on such issues as combating terrorism and drug trafficking.

But illegal immigration, which is a red-hot election issue amid high unemployment, dominated the talks.

A proposal to fingerprint visa applicants to make it easier to identify people who overstay in a G-5 country won widespread support, the ministers said.

Only France, Germany and Britain fingerprint applicants today.

The G-5 nations agreed to draw up a joint list of countries where this would be useful, focusing on Africa, the Middle East and Asia, the ministers said.

The G-5 also pledged to further study a plan to link the numbers of visas a country is given to its willingness to take back illegal immigrants.

Sarkozy has championed the G-5 as a way for European leaders to reach consensus on issues such as immigration ahead of formal meetings of the 25-member EU.

Others say the G-5 group is little more than a talking shop, and point out the G-5 meetings have no power to reach binding agreements.

"The whole thing is largely meant for domestic audiences," said Guillaume Durand, an analyst at the European Policy Center, a research institute in Brussels.

Still, the EU's new East European members, especially Poland, want to take part.

On Tuesday, Sarkozy told French radio station Europe 1 that he was willing in principle to have Poland, the largest new EU member, in the G-5 group.

But his comments on another agreement by the G-5 to jointly organize return flights of illegal immigrants were more likely to hurt relations with Eastern Europe than mend fences, analysts said.