EU parliament approves landmark overhaul of asylum rules
The EU parliament on Wednesday adopted a contentious reform of Europe's asylum policies that will harden border procedures and force all the bloc's 27 nations to share responsibility.
The parliament's main political groups overcame opposition from far-right and far-left parties to pass the EU Asylum and Migration Pact – a sweeping reform nearly a decade in the making.
It will come into force in 2026, after the European Commission sets out in coming months how it would be implemented.
New border centres will hold irregular migrants while their asylum requests are vetted, and speed up deportations of those deemed inadmissible.
It will also require EU countries to take in thousands of asylum-seekers from "frontline" states such as Italy and Greece. Alternatively, they could provide money or other resources to the under-pressure nations.
A controversial measure is the sending of asylum-seekers to countries outside the EU that are deemed "safe", if the migrant has sufficient ties to that country.
Parliament reactions
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the new rules a "historic, indispensable step" for the European Union.
The migration minister for Greece, one of the countries worst affected by arrivals of growing numbers of undocumented migrants, echoed this comment.
"This is a major breakthrough and a very important step towards a common, and therefore more effective, management of the migration challenges of our time," Migration Minister Dimitris Kairidis wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
(With newswires)
Read more on RFI English
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