BRITAIN is to join four big EU states in joint charter flights to send home failed asylumseekers as part of the drive to increase the rate of removals from the country.

The aircraft, dubbed “Asylum Airways”, will fly from capital to capital picking up illegal migrants in an initiative agreed at a meeting of the interior ministers of the five biggest EU states.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Interior Minister, said after a G5 meeeting in Evian, France: “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. Together . . . we will organise airplanes to repatriate illegal immigrants from Britain, Spain, Germany, France and Italy.”

Mr Sarkozy suggested that the flights could begin within a matter of weeks but the British Government adopted a more cautious approach on the timescale for the first asylum charter take-off.

The Home Office said that the Government supported the idea of shared EU asylum charter flights and was working out the practicalities.

Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, said: “Between our five countries there is a real determination to demonstrate to our citizens that we can work together. Joint action is always more effective.

Focusing on the relationship between a third country and the five of us is the right way to operate to ensure that an understanding of obligations, rights and responsibilities is present.”

He is pressing for the EU’s biggest states to link the granting of visas to third country citizens to a willingness of that country to accept deported asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants.

The interior ministers said that countries that fail to provide travel documents allowing illegal immigrants and failed asylum-seekers to return home would receive fewer visas for their citizens to enter the EU.

Charter flights are a much cheaper alternative than flying failed asylum-seekers home on commercial flights. Shared asylum charters will help the Government to increase the rate at which failed asylum-seekers are removed after a 10 per cent fall in the first quarter of the year to 3,000 compared with 3,320 in the same period last year.

Ministers have set a new target of removing more failed asylum-seekers than the number of applicants whose claims are unfounded by the end of this year. The initiative will make it easier for the Government to remove people to countries with which it does not have strong links or direct flights, such as Somalia. Italy has stronger links with Somalia than Britain as does France with some North African states.

Aircraft have been chartered by the Government to fly failed asylum-seekers to the Balkans but have never been used to return illegals outside Europe.

In other cases failed asylum-seekers are deported on commercial flights, which is both expensive and can be disturbing for other passengers, particularly if the individual becomes abusive and needs to be restrained.

Estimates given to the House of Commons showed that, per head, the cost of removing an Albanian by charter aircraft is one tenth of the cost of using a scheduled flight.

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