(PARIS) - European Union ministers sat down Tuesday with their counterparts from 27 African countries to try to enlist them in a new effort to curb the flood of illegal immigration.

EU leaders last month adopted a new immigration pact, largely with France's input, that seeks to tailor policies of the 27-nation bloc's to meet labour needs while tightening the screws on illegal residents.

But African governments view the shift with unease, concerned that "Fortress Europe" is toughening its stance as they struggle with a food crisis at home.

"A policy on migration cannot be defined without or against Africa, but rather with Africa," French Immigration Minister Brice Hortefeux told the opening of the EU-Africa ministerial conference in Paris.

"The objective of the European pact is to avoid a Europe that is a bunker or a sieve," said Hortefeux.

"A willingness to hold a dialogue must be at the centre of our migration patterns," he added, noting that two thirds of immigrants in France are from Africa.

Ministers are to adopt a cooperation programme for the next three years to step up the fight against illegal immigration and also look at development programmes to create work opportunities for Africans at home.

Some 80 delegations are taking part in a one-day meeting including the 27 nations of the European Union and 27 from northern, western and central Africa.

In the run up to the meeting, a coalition of 300 non-governmental organisations called "Bridges, not Walls" had denounced the EU's new immigration stance as "essentially security-driven and self-serving."

The European Pact on Immigration and Asylum adopted in October sets out principles for managing migration, fighting illegal immigration and forming partnerships with countries where people leave or travel through to get to Europe.

Rights groups charge that the new pact is repressive and puts too much emphasis on regulating immigration flows to allow more skilled workers in and fewer refugees.

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade this month used the historic win of Barack Obama, the first African American in the White House, to take a swipe at the EU's new immigration pact.

"Why did they do that? They did it to close the doors to black people except for officials, managers, engineers, doctors: the people they need. There the racism disappears," he said.

Getting the immigration pact voted through was a priority for the French EU presidency, which ends on January 1, when the Czech Republic takes over.

It was the second EU-Africa ministerial conference held after a meeting in Rabat in July 2006 produced agreement on setting up a partnership to fight illegal immigration through a combination of development aid, stepped-up border controls and controversial agreements on repatriation.

France sees accords it has signed with Gabon, Senegal and other African countries allowing for repatriation of illegal migrants as models for managing immigration flows.

Immigrants make up about 10 percent of the labour force in the EU plus Switzerland and Norway, working in all sectors and massively recruited as household staff, construction workers and in sales, according to a recent report by the French INSEE statistical institute.

The report found that immigrants remained vital for Europe's labour market and provided part of the solution to the problem of an ageing workforce.

Second Euro-African Ministerial Conference on Migration and Development

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