PARIS, July 6 (Xinhua) -- France and Britain reached agreements on the environment and the economy during a summit in French Alpine town Evian Monday ahead of the G8 summit to be held this week in Italy.

    "Our countries will work closely together," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said at a joint news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

    Accompanied by government ministers, the Franco-British summit was held two days before G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy.

    During the summit, Sarkozy and Brown discussed efforts to fight climate change, calling for their G8 partners to strive for an agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions at a December climate change conference in Copenhagen.

    The 27 countries of European Union have already agreed to reduce emissions by 20 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, a number that could be increased to 30 percent if other countries commit.

    The two leaders also called for action to cut oil price volatility. "We must, with the oil producing countries, try and stabilize the oil price in a reasonable range, neither too high nor too low," Sarkozy said. "The world will not recover from these yo-yo effects that take us from one excess to another."

    Brown wanted to have talks with the Saudis and OPEC, as well as other partners within the G8 and the G20 on future supplies.

    Both Sarkozy and Brown want strong economic recovery. "We will not accept a return to the situation that we had before," Sarkozy said, stressing the need for more action on financial reform and banking regulation.

    Brown said he and Sarkozy would work against international tax havens with new sanctions from March 2010. "Tax transparency, full exchange of tax information and reducing tax avoidance are crucial for the health of the global economy," he stressed.

    According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), countries including Switzerland and Liechtenstein are on the list of tax havens.

    "We believe that 2009 will be decisive in terms of regulation, new world governance and the fight against global warming and we are going to shake up things together," said Sarkozy.