The Spanish presidency of the Council and the European Parliament have reached a breakthrough deal on the core political elements of five key regulations that will thoroughly overhaul the EU’s legal framework on asylum and migration.

The EU is delivering on its promise to improve the asylum and migration system.

Citizens across the EU want their governments to deal with the migration challenge and today is a big step in this direction.

This reform is a crucial piece of the puzzle.

The EU also remains committed to tackling the root causes of migration, working together with countries of origin and transit and addressing the scourge of migrant smuggling.

Fernando Grande-Marlaska Gómez, Spanish Minister for the Interior

The five EU laws that the Spanish Presidency and Parliament have agreed on touch upon all stages of asylum and migration management, ranging from screening irregular migrants when they arrive in the EU, taking biometric data, procedures for making and handling asylum applications, the rules on determining which member state is responsible for handling an asylum application and cooperation and solidarity between member states and how to handle crisis situations, including cases of instrumentalisation of migrants.

The new rules, once adopted, will make the European asylum system more effective and will increase the solidarity between member states by enabling to lighten the load on those member states where most migrants arrive.

Following the provisional agreement, work will continue at technical level in the coming weeks to flesh out the details of the new regulations.

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