EU president France will present plans tomorrow for a crackdown on illegal immigration that it hopes the EU will adopt in October.
Under the proposals to be discussed by EU interior ministers in Cannes, EU leaders would pledge to boost the fight against illegal migration and expel more illegal migrants, and confirm commitments for a common asylum policy by 2010.
France has made harmonising the EU's immigration policy a priority of its six-month EU stewardship that began this month, and it wants leaders of the area's 27 states to adopt officially the "European Pact on Immigration and Asylum" in October.
French Immigration Minister Brice Hortefeux has said concerns about immigration were one reason Irish voters rejected the EU reform treaty last month.
EU diplomats say there should be little difficulty agreeing the text, which has already been watered down from France's original proposal in January, but there is concern about how it will be received outside the bloc.
South American leaders have condemned new EU rules that allow authorities to detain illegal immigrants for up to 18 months and ban them from re-entry for up to five years.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso defended the EU rules on Friday, however, saying they were more generous than the arrangements Latin American states had among themselves.
EU officials argue the bloc must get tougher on illegal immigration to convince voters to be more accepting of legal immigrants needed to make up for the EU's ageing population.
The French paper also calls for EU and bilateral agreements with countries of origin on control of illegal migration, including provisions for those countries to take migrants back.
The European Commission estimates there are up to eight million illegal migrants in the EU. More than 200,000 were arrested in the first half of 2007, and fewer than 90,000 were expelled.